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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other
+Tales, by Julian Hawthorne
+#2 in our series by Julian Hawthorne
+
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+Title: David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales
+
+Author: Julian Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7057]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 3, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+DAVID POINDEXTER'S
+DISAPPEARANCE
+_AND OTHER TALES_
+
+BY
+JULIAN HAWTHORNE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+DAVID POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE
+KEN'S MYSTERY
+"WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE"
+"SET NOT THY FOOT ON GRAVES"
+MY FRIEND PATON
+
+
+
+
+DAVID POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE.
+
+
+Among the records of the English state trials are to be found many
+strange stories, which would, as the phrase is, make the fortune of a
+modern novelist. But there are also numerous cases, not less
+stimulating to imagination and curiosity, which never attained more
+than local notoriety, of which the law was able to take but
+comparatively small cognizance, although they became subjects of much
+unofficial discussion and mystification. Among these cases none,
+perhaps, is better worth recalling than that of David Poindexter. It
+will be my aim here to tell the tale as simply and briefly as possible
+--to repeat it, indeed, very much as it came to my ears while living,
+several years ago, near the scene in which its events took place. There
+is a temptation to amplify it, and to give it a more recent date and a
+different setting; but (other considerations aside) the story might
+lose in force and weight more than it would thereby gain in artistic
+balance and smoothness.
+
+David Poindexter was a younger son of an old and respected family in
+Sussex, England. He was born in London in 1785. He was educated at
+Oxford, with a view to his entering the clerical profession, and in the
+year 1810 he obtained a living in the little town of Witton, near
+Twickenham, known historically as the home of Sir John Suckling. The
+Poindexters had been much impoverished by the excesses of David's
+father and grandfather, and David seems to have had few or no resources
+beyond the very modest stipend appertaining to his position. He was, at
+all events, poor, though possessed of capacities which bade fair to
+open to him some of the higher prizes of his calling; but, on the other
+hand, there is evidence that he chafed at his poverty, and reason to
+believe that he had inherited no small share of the ill-regulated
+temperament which had proved so detrimental to the elder generations of
+his family.
+
+Personally he was a man of striking aspect, having long, dark hair,
+heavily-marked eyebrows, and blue eyes; his mouth and chin were
+graceful in contour, but wanting in resolution; his figure was tall,
+well knit, and slender. He was an eloquent preacher, and capable, when
+warmed by his subject, of powerfully affecting the emotions of his
+congregation. He was a great favorite with women--whom, however, he
+uniformly treated with coldness--and by no means unpopular with men,
+toward some of whom he manifested much less reserve. Nevertheless,
+before the close of the second year of his incumbency he was known to
+be paying his addresses to a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Edith
+Saltine, the only child of an ex-army officer. The colonel was a
+widower, and in poor health, and since he was living mainly on his
+half-pay, and had very little to give his daughter, the affair was
+looked upon as a love match, the rather since Edith was a handsome
+young woman of charming character. The Reverend David Poindexter
+certainly had every appearance of being deeply in love; and it is often
+seen that the passions of reserved men, when once aroused, are stronger
+than those of persons more generally demonstrative.
+
+Colonel Saltine did not at first receive his proposed son-in-law with
+favor. He was a valetudinarian, and accustomed to regard his daughter
+as his nurse by right, and he resented the idea of her leaving him
+forlorn for the sake of a good-looking parson. It is very likely that
+his objections might have had the effect of breaking off the match, for
+his daughter was devotedly attached to him, and hardly questioned his
+right to dispose of her as he saw fit; but after a while the worthy
+gentleman seems to have thought better of his contrariness. Poindexter
+had strong persuasive powers, and no doubt made himself personally
+agreeable to the colonel, and, moreover, it was arranged that the
+latter should occupy the same house with Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter after
+they were married. Nevertheless, the colonel was not a man to move
+rapidly, and the engagement had worn along for nearly a year without
+the wedding-day having been fixed. One winter evening in the early part
+of December, Poindexter dined with the colonel and Edith, and as the
+gentlemen were sitting over their wine the lover spoke on the topic
+that was uppermost in his thoughts, and asked his host whether there
+was any good reason why the marriage should not be consummated at once.
+
+"Christmas is at hand," the young man remarked; "why should it not be
+rendered doubly memorable by granting this great boon?"
+
+"For a parson, David, you are a deuced impatient man," the colonel
+said.
+
+"Parsons are human," the other exclaimed with warmth.
+
+"Humph! I suppose some of them are. In fact, David, if I didn't believe
+that there was something more in you than texts and litanies and the
+Athanasian creed, I'll be hanged if I'd ever have let you look twice at
+Edith. That girl has got blood in her veins, David; she's not to be
+thrown away on any lantern-jawed, white-livered doctor of souls, I can
+tell you."
+
+David held his head down, and seemed not to intend a reply; but he
+suddenly raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the colonel's. "You know
+what my father was," he said, in a low, distinct voice; "I am my
+father's son."
+
+"That idea has occurred to me more than once, David, and to say the
+truth, I've liked you none the less for it. But, then, what the deuce
+should a fellow like you want to do in a pulpit? I respect the cloth as
+much as any man, I hope, but leaving theory aside, and coming down to
+practice, aren't there fools and knaves enough in the world to carry on
+that business, without a fellow of heart and spirit like you going into
+it?"
+
+"Theory or no theory, there have been as great men in the pulpit as in
+any other position," said David, gloomily.
+
+"I don't say to the contrary: ecclesiastical history, and all that: but
+what I do say is, if a man is great in the pulpit, it's a pity he isn't
+somewhere else, where he could use his greatness to more advantage."
+
+"Well," remarked David, in the same somber tone, "I am not contented:
+so much I can admit to the father of the woman I love. But you know as
+well as I do that men nowadays are called to my profession not so much
+by the Divine summons as by the accident of birth. Were it not for the
+law of primogeniture, Colonel Saltine, the Church of England would be,
+for the most part, a congregation without a clergyman."
+
+"Gad! I'm much of your opinion," returned the colonel, with a grin;
+"but there are two doors, you know, for a second son to enter the world
+by. If he doesn't fancy a cassock, he can put on His Majesty's
+uniform."
+
+"Neither the discipline nor the activity of a soldier's life would suit
+me," David answered. "So far as I know my own nature, what it craves is
+freedom, and the enjoyment of its capacities. Only under such
+conditions could I show what I am capable of. In other words," he
+added, with a short laugh, "ten thousand a year is the profession I
+should choose."
+
+"Ah," murmured the colonel, heaving a sigh, "I doubt that's a
+profession we'd all of us like to practice as well as preach. What! no
+more wine? Oh, ay, Edith, of course! Well, go to her, sir, if you must;
+but when you come to my age you'll have found out which wears the best
+--woman or the bottle. I'll join you presently, and maybe we'll see
+what can be done about this marrying business."
+
+So David went to Edith, and they had a clear hour together before they
+heard the colonel's slippered tread hobbling through the hall. Just
+before he opened the door, David had said: "I sometimes doubt whether
+you wholly love me, after all." And she had answered:
+
+"If I do not, it is because I sometimes feel as if you were not your
+real self."
+
+The colonel heard nothing of this odd bit of dialogue; but when he had
+subsided, with his usual grunt, into his arm-chair beside the fire-
+place, and Edith had brought him his foot-stool and his pipe, and pat
+the velvet skull cap on his bald pate, he drew a long whiff of tobacco
+smoke, and said:
+
+"If you young folks want to set up housekeeping a month from to-day,
+you can do it, for all I care."
+
+Little did any one of the three suspect what that month was destined to
+bring forth.
+
+David Poindexter's father had been married twice, his second wife dying
+within a year of her wedding-day, and two weeks after bringing David
+into the world. This lady, whose maiden name was Lambert, had a brother
+who was a gentleman farmer, and a tolerably successful one. His farm
+was situated in the parish of Witton, and he owned a handsome house on
+the outskirts of the town itself. He and David's father had been at one
+time great friends, insomuch that David was named after him, and
+Lambert, as his godfather as well as uncle, presented the child with
+the usual silver mug. Lambert was never known to have married, but
+there were rumors, dating as far as back David's earliest
+recollections, to the effect that he had entertained a secret and
+obscure passion for some foreign woman of great beauty, but of doubtful
+character and antecedents. Nobody could be found who had ever seen this
+woman, or would accept the responsibility of asserting that she
+actually existed; but she afforded a convenient means of accounting for
+many things that seemed mysterious in Mr. Lambert's conduct. At length,
+when David was about eight years old, his godfather left England
+abruptly, and without telling any one whither he was going or when he
+would return. As a matter of fact he never did return, nor had any
+certain news ever been heard of him since his departure. Neither his
+house nor his farm was ever sold, however, though they were rented to
+more than one tenant during a number of years. It was said, also, that
+Lambert held possession of some valuable real estate in London.
+Nevertheless, in process of time he was forgotten, or remembered only
+as a name. And the new generation of men, though they might speak of
+"the old Lambert House," neither knew nor cared how it happened to have
+that title. For aught they could tell, it might have borne it ever
+since Queen Elizabeth's time. Even David Poindexter had long ceased to
+think of his uncle as anything much more substantial than a dream.
+
+He was all the more surprised, therefore, when, on the day following
+the interview just mentioned, he received a letter from the late David
+Lambert's lawyers. It informed him in substance that his uncle had died
+in Constantinople, unmarried (so far as could be ascertained),
+intestate, and without blood-relations surviving him. Under these
+circumstances, his property, amounting to one hundred and sixty
+thousand pounds, the bulk of which was invested in land and houses in
+the city of London, as well as the country-seat in Witton known as the
+old Lambert House, and the farm lands thereto appertaining--all this
+wealth, not to mention four or five thousand pounds in ready money,
+came into possession of the late David Lambert's nearest of kin, who,
+as it appeared, was none other than the Reverend David Poindexter.
+"Would that gentleman, therefore be kind enough, at his convenience, to
+advise his obedient servants as to what disposition he wished to make
+of his inheritance?"
+
+It was a Saturday morning, and the young clergyman was sitting at his
+study table; the fire was burning in the grate at his right hand, and
+his half-written sermon lay on the desk before him. After reading the
+letter, at first hurriedly and amazedly, afterward more slowly, with
+frequent pauses, he folded it up, and, still holding it in his hand,
+leaned back in his chair, and remained for the better part of an hour
+in a state of deep preoccupation. Many changing expressions passed
+across his face, and glowed in his dark-blue eyes, and trembled on the
+curves of his lips. At last he roused himself, sat erect, and smote the
+table violently with his clinched hand. Yes, it was true it was real;
+he, David Poindexter, an hour ago the poor imprisoned clergyman of the
+Church of England--he, as by a stroke of magic, was free, powerful,
+emancipated, the heir of seven thousand pounds a year! And what about
+tomorrow's sermon?
+
+He rose up smiling, with a vivid color in his cheeks and a bright
+sparkle in his eyes. He stretched himself to his full height, threw out
+his arms, and smote his chest with both fists. What a load was gone
+from his heart! What a new ardor of life was this that danced in his
+veins! He walked with long strides to the window, and threw it wide
+open, breathing in the rush of bright icy air with deep inhalations.
+Freedom! emancipation! Yonder, above the dark, level boughs of the
+cedar of Lebanon, rose the square, gray tower of the church. Yesterday
+it was the incubus of his vain hopes; to-day it was the tomb of a dead
+and despised past. What had David Poindexter to do with calling sinners
+to repentance? Let him first find out for himself what sin was like.
+Then he looked to the right, where between the leafless trees Colonel
+Saltine's little dwelling raised its red-tile roof above the high
+garden-wall. And so, Edith, you doubted whether I were at all times my
+real self? You shall not need to make that complaint hereafter. As for
+to-morrow's sermon--I am not he who wrote sermons, nor shall I ever
+preach any. Away with it, therefore!
+
+He strode back to the table, took up the sheets of manuscript from the
+desk, tore them across, and laid them on the burning coals. They
+smoldered for a moment, then blazed up, and the draught from the open
+window whisked the blackened ashes up the chimney. David stood,
+meanwhile, with his arms folded, smiling to himself, and repeating, in
+a low voice:
+
+"Never again--never again--never again."
+
+By-and-by he reseated himself at his desk, and hurriedly wrote two or
+three notes, one of which was directed to Miss Saltine. He gave them to
+his servant with an injunction to deliver them at their addresses
+during the afternoon. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to find
+that it was already past twelve o'clock. He went up-stairs, packed a
+small portmanteau, made some changes in his dress, and came down again
+with a buoyant step. There was a decanter half full of sherry on the
+sideboard in the dining-room; he poured out and drank two glasses in
+succession. This done, he put on his hat, and left the house with his
+portmanteau in his hand, and ten minutes later he had intercepted the
+London coach, and was bowling along on his way to the city.
+
+There was a dramatic instinct in David, as in many eloquent men of
+impressionable temperament, which caused him every now and then to look
+upon all that was occurring as a sort of play, and to resolve to act
+his part in a telling and picturesque manner. On that Saturday
+afternoon he had an interview with the late Mr. Lambert's lawyers, and
+they were struck by his calm, lofty, and indifferent bearing. He seemed
+to regard worldly prosperity as a thing beneath him, yet to feel in a
+half-impatient way the responsibility which the control of wealth
+forced upon him.
+
+"It is my purpose not to allow this legacy to interfere permanently
+with my devotion to my higher duties," he remarked, "but I have taken
+measures to enable myself to place these affairs upon a fixed and
+convenient footing. I presume," he added, fixing his eyes steadily upon
+his interlocutor, "that you have thoroughly investigated the
+possibility of there being any claimant nearer than myself?"
+
+"No such claimant could exist," the lawyer replied, "unless the late
+Mr. Lambert had married and had issue."
+
+"Is there, then, any reason to suppose that he contemplated the
+contingency that has happened?"
+
+"If he bestowed any thought at all upon the subject, that contingency
+could hardly have failed to present itself to his mind," the lawyer
+answered.
+
+David consented to receive the draft for a thousand pounds which was
+tendered him, and took his leave. He returned to his rooms at the
+Tavistock Hotel, Covent Garden. In the evening, after making some
+changes in his costume, he went to the theatre, and saw Kean play
+something of Shakespeare's. When the play was over, and he was out in
+the frosty air again, he felt it impossible to sleep. It was after
+midnight before he returned to his hotel, with flushed cheeks, and a
+peculiar brilliance in his eyes. He slept heavily, but awoke early in
+the morning with a slight feeling of feverishness. It was Sunday
+morning. He thought of his study in the parsonage at Witton, with its
+bright fire, its simplicity, its repose. He thought of the church, and
+of the congregation which he would never face again. And Edith--what
+had been her thoughts and dreams during the night? He got up, and went
+to the window. It looked out upon a narrow, inclosed court. The sky was
+dingy, the air was full of the muffled tumult of the city. His present
+state, as to its merely external aspect, was certainly not so agreeable
+as that of the morning before. Ay, but what a vista had opened now
+which then was closed! David dressed himself, and went down to his
+breakfast. While sitting at his table in the window, looking out upon
+the market-place, and stirring his cup of Mocha, a gentleman came up
+and accosted him.
+
+"Am I mistaken, or is your name Poindexter?"
+
+David looked up, and recognized Harwood Courtney, a son of Lord
+Derwent. Courtney was a man of fashion, a member of the great clubs,
+and a man, as they say, with a reputation. He was a good twenty years
+older than David, and had been the companion of the latter's father in
+some of his wildest escapades. To David, at this moment, he was the
+representative and symbol of that great, splendid, unregenerate world,
+with which it was his purpose to make acquaintance.
+
+"You are not mistaken, Mr. Courtney," he said, quietly. "Have you
+breakfasted? It is some time since we have met."
+
+"Why, yes, egad! If I remember right, you were setting out on another
+road than that which I was travelling. However, we sinners, you know,
+depend upon you parsons to pull us up in time to prevent any--er--any
+_very_ serious catastrophe! Ha! ha!"
+
+"I understand you; but for my part I have left the pulpit," said David,
+uttering the irrevocable words with a carelessness which he himself
+wondered at.
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Courtney, with a little intonation of surprise and
+curiosity, which his good breeding prevented him from formulating more
+explicitly. As David made no rejoinder, he presently continued: "Then--
+er--perhaps you might find it in your way to dine with me this evening.
+Only one or two friends--a very quiet Sunday party."
+
+"Thank you," said David. "I had intended going to bed betimes to-night;
+but it will give me pleasure to meet a quiet party."
+
+"Then that's settled," exclaimed Courtney; "and meanwhile, if you've
+finished your coffee, what do you say to a turn in the Row? I've got my
+trap here, and a breath of air will freshen us up."
+
+David and Courtney spent the day together, and by evening the young ex-
+clergyman had made the acquaintance of many of the leading men about
+town. He had also allowed the fact to transpire that his pecuniary
+standing was of the soundest kind; but this was done so skillfully--
+with such a lofty air--that even Courtney, who was as cynical as any
+man, was by no means convinced that David's change of fortune had
+anything to do with his relinquishing the pulpit.
+
+"David Poindexter is no fool," he remarked, confidentially, to a
+friend. "He has double the stuff in him that the old fellow had. You
+must get up early to get the better of a man who has been a parson, and
+seen through himself!"
+
+David, in fact, felt himself the superior, intellectually and by
+nature, of most of the men he saw. He penetrated and comprehended them,
+but to them he was impenetrable; a certain air of authority rested upon
+him; he had abandoned the service of God; but the training whereby he
+had fitted himself for it stood him in good stead; it had developed his
+insight, his subtlety, and, strange to say, his powers of
+dissimulation. Contrary to what is popularly supposed, his study of the
+affairs of the other world had enabled him to deal with this world's
+affairs with a half-contemptuous facility. As for the minor
+technicalities, the social pass-words, and so forth, to which much
+importance is generally ascribed, David had nothing to fear from them;
+first, because he was a man of noble manners, naturally as well as by
+cultivation; and, secondly, because the fact that he had been a
+clergyman acted as a sort of breastplate against criticism. It would be
+thought that he chose to appear ignorant of that which he really knew.
+
+As for Mr. Courtney's dinner, though it may doubtless have been a quiet
+one from his point of view, it differed considerably from such Sunday
+festivities as David had been accustomed to. A good deal of wine was
+drunk, and the conversation (a little cautious at first, on David's
+account) gradually thawed into freedom. It was late when they rose from
+table; and then a proposition was made to go to a certain well-known
+club in St. James's Street. David went with the rest, and, for the
+first time in his life, played cards for money; he lost seven hundred
+pounds--more money than he had handled during the last three years--but
+he kept his head, and at three o'clock in the morning drove with
+Courtney to the latter's lodgings, with five hundred pounds in his
+pocket over and above the sum with which he had begun to play. Here was
+a wonderful change in his existence; but it did not seem to him half so
+wonderful as his reason told him it was. It seemed natural--as if,
+after much wandering, he had at last found his way into the place where
+he belonged. It is said that savages, educated from infancy amid
+civilized surroundings, will, on breathing once more their native air,
+tear off their clothes and become savages again. Somewhat similar may
+have been David's case, who, inheriting in a vivid degree the manly
+instincts of his forefathers, had forcibly and by constraint of
+circumstances lived a life wholly opposed to these impulses--an
+artificial life, therefore. But now at length he had come into his
+birthright, and felt at home.
+
+One episode of the previous evening remained in his memory: it had
+produced an effect upon him out of proportion with its apparent
+significance. A gentleman, a guest at the dinner, a small man with
+sandy hair and keen gray eyes, on being presented to David had looked
+at him with an expression of shrewd perplexity, and said:
+
+"Have we not met before?"
+
+"It is possible, but I confess I do not recollect it," replied David.
+
+"The name was not Poindexter," continued the other, "but the face--
+pardon me--I could have taken my oath to."
+
+"Where did this meeting take place?" asked David, smiling.
+
+"In Paris, at ----'s," said the gray-eyed gentleman (mentioning the
+name of a well-known French nobleman).
+
+"You are quite certain, of that?"
+
+"Yes. It was but a month since."
+
+"I was never in Paris. For three years I have hardly been out of sight
+of London," David answered. "What was your friend's name?"
+
+"It has slipped my memory," he replied. "An Italian name, I fancy. But
+he was a man--pardon me--of very striking appearance, and I conversed
+with him for more than an hour."
+
+Now it is by no means an uncommon occurrence for two persons to bear a
+close resemblance to each other, but (aside from the fact that David
+was anything but an ordinary-looking man) this mistake of his new
+acquaintance affected him oddly. He involuntarily associated it with
+the internal and external transformation which had happened to him, and
+said to himself:
+
+"This counterpart of mine was prophetic: he was what I am to be--what I
+am." And fantastic though the notion was, he could not rid himself of
+it.
+
+David returned to Witton about the middle of the week. In the interval
+he had taken measures to make known to those concerned the revolution
+of his affairs, and to have the old Lambert mansion opened, and put in
+some sort of condition for his reception. He had gone forth on foot, an
+unknown, poor, and humble clergyman; he returned driving behind a pair
+of horses, by far the most important personage in the town; and yet
+this outward change was far less great than the change within. His
+reception could scarcely be called cordial; though not wanting in the
+technical respect and ceremony due to him as a gentleman of wealth and
+influence, he could perceive a half concealed suspense and misgiving,
+due unmistakably to his attitude as a recreant clergyman.
+
+In fact, his worthy parishioners were in a terrible quandary how to
+reconcile their desire to stand well with their richest fellow-
+townsman, and their dismayed recognition of that townsman's scandalous
+professional conduct. David smiled at this, but it made him bitter too.
+He had intended once more to call the congregation together, and
+frankly to explain to them the reasons, good or bad, which had induced
+him to withdraw from active labor in the church. But now he determined
+to preserve a proud and indifferent silence. There was only one person
+who had a right to call him to account, and it was not without
+fearfulness that he looked forward to his meeting with her. However,
+the sooner such fears are put at rest the better, and he called upon
+Edith on the evening of his arrival. Her father had been in bed for two
+days with a cold, and she was sitting alone in the little parlor.
+
+She rose at his entrance with a deep blush, and a look of mixed
+gladness and anxiety. Her eyes swiftly noted the change in his dress,
+for he had considerably modified, though not as yet wholly laid aside,
+the external marks of his profession. She held back from him with a
+certain strangeness and timidity, so that lie did not kiss her cheek,
+but only her hand. The first words of greeting were constrained and
+conventional, but at last he said:
+
+"All is changed, Edith, except our love for each other."
+
+"I do not hold you to that," she answered, quickly.
+
+"But you can not turn me from it," he said, with a smile.
+
+"I do not know you yet," said she, looking away.
+
+"When I last saw you, you said you doubted whether I were my real self.
+I have become my real self since then."
+
+"Because you are not what you were, it does not follow that you are
+what you should be."
+
+"Surely, Edith, that is not reasonable. I was what circumstances forced
+me to be, henceforth I shall be what God made me."
+
+"Did God, then, have no hand in those circumstances?"
+
+"Not more, at all events, than in these."
+
+Edith shook her head. "God does not absolve us from holy vows."
+
+"But how if I can not, with loyalty to my inner conscience, hold to
+those vows?" exclaimed David, with more warmth. "I have long felt that
+I was not fitted for this sacred calling. Before the secret tribunal of
+my self-knowledge, I have stood charged with the sin of hypocrisy. It
+has been God's will that I be delivered from that sin."
+
+"Why did you not say that before, David?" she demanded, looking at him.
+"Why did you remain a hypocrite until it was for your worldly benefit
+to abandon your trust? Can you say, on your word of honor, that you
+would stand where you do now if you were still poor instead of rich?"
+
+"Men's eyes are to some extent opened and their views are confirmed by
+events. They make our dreams and forebodings into realities. We
+question in our minds, and events give us the answers."
+
+"Such an argument might excuse any villainy," said Edith, lifting her
+head indignantly.
+
+"Villainy! Do you use that word to me?" exclaimed David.
+
+"Not unless your own heart bids me--and I do not know your heart."
+
+"Because you do not love me?"
+
+"You may be right," replied Edith, striving to steady her voice; "but
+at least I believed I loved you."
+
+"You are cured of that belief, it seems--as I am cured of many foolish
+faiths," said David, with gloomy bitterness. "Well, so be it! The love
+that waits upon a fastidious conscience is never the deepest love. My
+love is not of that complexion. Were it possible that the shadow of
+sin, or of crime itself, could descend upon you, it would but render
+you dearer to me than before."
+
+"You may break my heart, David, if you will," cried the girl,
+tremulously, yet resolutely, "but I reverence love more than I love
+you."
+
+David had turned away as if to leave the room, but he paused and
+confronted her once more.
+
+"At any rate, we will understand each other," said he. "Do you make it
+your condition that I should go back to the ministry?"
+
+Edith was still seated, but the condition of the crisis compelled her
+to rise. She stood before him, her dark eyes downcast, her lips
+trembling, nervously drawing the fingers of one hand through the clasp
+of the other. She was tempted to yield to him, for she could imagine no
+happiness in life without him; but a rare sanity and integrity of mind
+made her perceive that he had pushed the matter to a false alternative.
+It was not a question of preaching or not preaching sermons, but of
+sinful apostasy from an upright life. At last she raised her eyes,
+which shone like dark jewels in her pale countenance, and said, slowly,
+"We had better part."
+
+"Then my sins be upon your head!" cried David, passionately.
+
+The blood mounted to her cheeks at the injustice of this rejoinder, but
+she either could not or would not answer again. She remained erect and
+proud until the door had closed between them; what she did after that
+neither David nor any one else knew.
+
+The apostate David seems to have determined that, if she were to bear
+the burden of his sins, they should be neither few nor light. His life
+for many weeks after this interview was a scandal and a disgrace. The
+old Lambert mansion was the scene of carousals and excesses such as
+recalled the exploits of the monks of Medmenham. Harwood Courtney, and
+a score of dissolute gentlemen like him, not to speak of other
+visitors, thronged the old house day and night; drinking, gaming, and
+yet wilder doings gave the sober little town no rest, till the Reverend
+David Poindexter was commonly referred to as the Wicked Parson.
+Meanwhile Edith Saltine bore herself with a grave, pale impassiveness,
+which some admired, others wondered at, and others deemed an indication
+that she had no heart. If she had not, so much the better for her; for
+her father was almost as difficult to manage as David himself. The old
+gentleman could neither comprehend nor forgive what seemed to him his
+daughter's immeasurable perversity. One day she had been all for
+marrying a poor, unknown preacher; and the next day, when to marry him
+meant to be the foremost lady in the neighborhood, she dismissed him
+without appeal. And the worst of it was that, much as the poor
+colonel's mouth watered at the feasts and festivities of the Lambert
+mansion, he was prevented by the fatality of his position from taking
+any part in them. So Edith could find no peace either at home or
+abroad; and if it dwelt not in her own heart, she was indeed forlorn.
+
+What may have been the cost of all this dissipation it was difficult to
+say, but several observant persons were of opinion that the parson's
+income could not long stand it. There were rumors that he had heavy
+bills owing in several quarters, which he could pay only by realizing
+some of his investments. On the other hand, it was said that he played
+high and constantly, and usually had the devil's luck. But it is
+impossible to gauge the truth of such stories, and the Wicked Parson
+himself took no pains either to deny or confirm them. He was always the
+loudest, the gayest, and the most reckless of his company, and the
+leader and inspirer of all their wild proceedings; but it was noticed
+that, though he laughed often, he never smiled; and that his face, when
+in repose, bore traces of anything but happiness. For some cause or
+other, moreover--but whether maliciously or remorsefully was open to
+question--he never entirely laid aside his clerical garb; he seemed
+either to delight in profaning it, or to retain it as the reminder and
+scourge of his own wickedness.
+
+One night there was a great gathering up at the mansion, and the noise
+and music were kept up till well past the small hours of the morning.
+Gradually the guests departed, some going toward London, some
+elsewhere. At last only Harwood Courtney remained, and he and David sat
+down in the empty dining-room, disorderly with the remains of the
+carousal, to play picquet. They played, with short intermissions, for
+nearly twenty-four hours. At last David threw down his cards, and said,
+quietly:
+
+"Well, that's all. Give me until to-morrow."
+
+"With all the pleasure in life, my boy," replied the other; "and your
+revenge, too, if you like. Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is to
+take a nap."
+
+"You may do so if you please," said David; "for my part, I must take a
+turn on horseback first. I can never sleep till I have breathed fresh
+air."
+
+They parted accordingly, Courtney going to his room, and David to the
+stables, whence he presently issued, mounted on his bay mare, and rode
+eastward. On his way he passed Colonel Saltine's house, and drew rein
+for a moment beside it, looking up at Edith's window. It was between
+four and five o'clock of a morning in early April; the sky was clear,
+and all was still and peaceful. As he sat in the saddle looking up, the
+blind of the window was raised and the sash itself opened, and Edith,
+in her white night-dress, with her heavy brown hair falling round her
+face and on her shoulders, gazed out. She regarded him with a half-
+bewildered expression, as if doubting of his reality, For a moment they
+remained thus; then he waved his hand to her with a wild gesture of
+farewell, and rode on, passing immediately out of sight behind the dark
+foliage of the cedar of Lebanon.
+
+On reaching the London high-road the horseman paused once more, and
+seemed to hesitate what course to pursue; but finally he turned to the
+right, and rode in a southerly direction. The road wound gently, and
+dipped and rose to cross low hills; trees bordered the way on each
+side; and as the sun rose they threw long shadows westward, while the
+birds warbled and twittered in the fields and hedges. By-and-by a clump
+of woodland came into view about half a mile off, the road passing
+through the midst of it. As David entered it at one end, he saw,
+advancing toward him through the shade and sunlight, a rider mounted on
+a black horse. The latter seemed to be a very spirited animal, and as
+David drew near it suddenly shied and reared so violently that any but
+a practiced horseman would have been unseated. No catastrophe occurred,
+however, and a moment afterward the two cavaliers were face to face. No
+sooner had their eyes met than, as if by a common impulse, they both
+drew rein, and set staring at each other with a curiosity which merged
+into astonishment. At length the stranger on the black horse gave a
+short laugh, and said:
+
+"I perceive that the same strange thing has struck us both, sir. If you
+won't consider it uncivil, I should like to know who you are. My name
+is Giovanni Lambert."
+
+"Giovanni Lambert," repeated David, with a slight involuntary movement;
+"unless I am mistaken, I have heard mention of you. But you are not
+Italian?"
+
+"Only on my mother's side. But you have the advantage of me."
+
+"You will understand that I could not have heard of you without feeling
+a strong desire to meet you," said David, dismounting as he spoke. "It
+is, I think, the only desire left me in the world. I had marked this
+wood, as I came along, as an inviting place to rest in. Would it suit
+you to spend an hour here, where we can converse better at our ease
+than in saddle; or does time press you? As for me, I have little more
+to do with time."
+
+"I am at your service, sir, with pleasure," returned the other, leaping
+lightly to the ground, and revealing by the movement a pair of small
+pistols attached to the belt beneath his blue riding surtout. "It was
+in my mind, also, to stretch my legs and take a pull at my pipe, for,
+early as it is, I have ridden far this morning."
+
+At the point where they had halted a green lane branched off into the
+depths of the wood, and down this they passed, leading their horses.
+When they were out of sight of the road they made their animals fast in
+such a way that they could crop the grass, and themselves reclined at
+the foot of a broad-limbed oak, and they remained in converse there for
+upward of an hour.
+
+In fact, it must been several hours later (for the sun was high in the
+heavens) when one of them issued from the wood. He was mounted on a
+black horse, and wore a blue surtout and high boots. After looking up
+and down the road, and assuring himself that no one was in sight, he
+turned his horse's head toward London, and set off at a round canter.
+Coming to a cross-road, he turned to the right, and rode for an hour in
+that direction, crossing the Thames near Hampton Wick. In the afternoon
+he entered London from the south, and put up at an obscure hostelry.
+Having seen his horse attended to, and eaten something himself, he went
+to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. On awaking, he ate
+heartily again, and spent the rest of the day in writing and arranging
+a quantity of documents that were packed in his saddle-bags. The next
+morning early he paid his reckoning, rode across London Bridge, and
+shaped his course toward the west.
+
+Meanwhile the town of Witton was in vast perturbation. When Mr. Harwood
+Courtney woke up late in the afternoon, and came yawning down-stairs to
+get his breakfast, he learned, in answer to his inquiries, that nothing
+had been seen of David Poindexter since he rode away thirteen hours
+ago. Mr. Courtney expressed anxiety at this news, and dispatched his
+own valet and one of David's grooms to make investigations in the
+neighborhood. These two personages investigated to such good purpose
+that before night the whole neighborhood was aware that David
+Poindexter had disappeared. By the next morning it became evident that
+something had happened to the Wicked Parson, and some people ventured
+to opine that the thing which had happened to him was that he had run
+away. And indeed it was astonishing to find to how many worthy people
+this evil-minded parson was in debt. Every other man you met had a bill
+against the Reverend David Poindexter in his pocket; and as the day
+wore on, and still no tidings of the missing man were received,
+individuals of the sheriff and bailiff species began to be
+distinguishable amid the crowd. But the great sensation was yet to
+come. How the report started no one knew, but toward supper-time it
+passed from mouth to mouth that Mr. Harwood Courtney, in the course of
+his twenty-four hours of picquet with Poindexter, had won from the
+latter not his ready money alone, but the entire property and estates
+that had accrued to him as nearest of kin to the late David Lambert.
+And it was added that, as the debt was a gambling transaction, and
+therefore not technically recoverable by process of law, Mr. Courtney
+was naturally very anxious for his debtor to put in an appearance. Now
+it so happened that this report, unlike many others ostensibly more
+plausible, was true in every particular.
+
+Probably there was more gossip at the supper-tables of Witton that
+night than in any other town of ten times the size in the United
+Kingdom; and it was formally agreed that Poindexter had escaped to the
+Continent, and would either remain in hiding there, or take passage by
+the first opportunity to the American colonies, or the United States,
+as they had now been called for some years past. Nobody defended the
+reverend apostate, but, on the other hand, nobody pretended to be sorry
+for Mr. Harwood Courtney; it was generally agreed that they had both of
+them got what they deserved. The only question was, What was to become
+of the property? Some people said it ought to belong to Edith Saltine;
+but of course poetical justice of that kind was not to be expected.
+
+Edith, meanwhile, had kept herself strictly secluded. She was the last
+person who had seen David Poindexter, but she had mentioned the fact to
+no one. She was also the only person who did not believe that he had
+escaped, but who felt convinced that he was dead, and that he had died
+by his own hand. That gesture of farewell and of despair which he had
+made to her as he vanished behind the cedar of Lebanon had for her a
+significance capable of only one interpretation. Were he alive, he
+would have returned.
+
+On the evening of the day following the events just recorded, the
+solitude of her room suddenly became terrible to Edith, and she was
+irresistibly impelled to dress herself and go forth in the open air.
+She wound a veil about her head, and, avoiding the main thoroughfare,
+slipped out of the town unperceived, and gained the free country. After
+a while she found herself approaching a large tree, which spread its
+branches across a narrow lane that made a short-cut to the London
+highway. Beneath the tree was a natural seat, formed of a fragment of
+stone, and here David and she had often met and sat. It was a mild,
+still evening; she sat down on the stone, and removed her veil. The
+moon, then in its first quarter, was low in the west, and shone beneath
+the branches of the tree.
+
+Presently she was aware--though not by any sound--that some one was
+approaching, and she drew back in the shadow of the tree. Down the lane
+came a horseman, mounted on a tall, black horse. The outline of his
+figure and the manner in which he rode fixed Edith's gaze as if by a
+spell, and made the blood hum in her ears. Nearer he came, and now his
+face was discernible in the level moonlight. It was impossible to
+mistake that countenance: the horseman was David Poindexter. His
+costume, however, was different from any he had ever before worn; there
+was nothing clerical about it; nor was that black horse from the
+Poindexter stables. Then, too, how noiselessly he rode!--as noiselessly
+as a ghost. That, however, must have been because his horse's hoofs
+fell on the soft turf. He rode slowly, and his head was bent as if in
+thought; but almost before Edith could draw her breath, much less to
+speak, he had passed beneath the boughs of the tree, and was riding on
+toward the village. Now he had vanished in the vague light and shadow,
+and a moment later Edith began to doubt whether her senses had not
+played her a trick. A superstitious horror fell upon her; what she had
+seen was a spirit, not living flesh and blood. She knelt down by the
+stone, and remained for a long time with her face hidden upon her arms,
+and her hands clasped, sometimes praying, sometimes wondering and
+fearing. At last she rose to her feet, and hastened homeward through
+the increasing darkness. But before she had reached her house she had
+discovered that what she had seen was no ghost. The whole village was
+in a fever of excitement.
+
+Everybody was full of the story. An hour ago who should appear riding
+quietly up the village street but David Poindexter himself--at least,
+if it were not he, it was the devil. He seemed to take little notice of
+the astonished glances that were thrown at him, or, at any rate, not to
+understand them. Instead of going to the Lambert mansion, he had
+alighted at the inn, and asked the innkeeper whether he might have
+lodging there. But when the innkeeper, who had known the reverend
+gentleman as well as he knew his own sign-board, had addressed him by
+name, the other had shaken his head, seemed perplexed, and had affirmed
+that his name was not Poindexter but Lambert; and had added, upon
+further inquiry, that he was the only son of David Lambert, and was
+come to claim that gentleman's property, to which he was by law
+entitled; in proof whereof he had produced various documents, among
+them the certificates of his mother's marriage and of his own birth. As
+to David Poindexter, he declared that he knew not there was such a
+person; and although no man in his senses could be made to believe that
+David Poindexter and this so-called Lambert were twain, and not one and
+the same individual, the latter stoutly maintained his story, and vowed
+that the truth would sooner or later appear and confirm him. Meanwhile,
+however, one of his creditors had had him arrested for a debt of eight
+hundred pounds; and Harwood Courtney had seen him, and said that he was
+ready to pledge his salvation that the man was Poindexter and nobody
+else. So here the matter rested for the present. But who ever heard of
+so strange and audacious an attempt at imposition? The man had not even
+made any effort to disguise himself further than to put on a different
+suit of clothes and get another horse; and why, in the name of all that
+was inconceivable, had he come back to Witton, instead of going to any
+other part of the earth's surface  What could he expect here, except
+immediate detection, imprisonment, and ruin? Was he insane? He did not
+seem to be so; but that interpretation of his conduct was not only the
+most charitable one, but no other could be imagined that would account
+for the facts.
+
+Witton slept but little that night; but who shall describe its
+bewilderment when, early in the morning, a constable arrived in the
+village with the news that the dead body of the Reverend David
+Poindexter had been found in some woods about fifteen miles off, and
+that his bay mare had been picked up grazing along the roadside not far
+from home! Upon the heels of this intelligence came the corpse itself,
+lying in a country wagon, and the bay mare trotting behind. It was
+taken out and placed on the table in the inn parlor, where it
+immediately became the center of a crowd half crazy with curiosity and
+amazement. The cause of death was found to be the breaking of the
+vertebral column just at the base of the neck. There was no other
+injury on the body, and, allowing for the natural changes incident to
+death, the face was in every particular the face of David Poindexter.
+The man who called himself Lambert was now brought into the room, and
+made to stand beside the corpse, which he regarded with a certain calm
+interest. The resemblance between the two was minute and astonishing;
+it was found to be impossible, upon that evidence alone, to decide
+which was David Poindexter.
+
+The matter was brought to trial as promptly as possible. A great number
+of witnesses identified the prisoner as David Poindexter, but those who
+had seen the corpse mostly gave their evidence an opposite inclination;
+and four persons (one of them the gray-eyed gentleman who has been
+already mentioned) swore positively that the prisoner was Giovanni
+Lambert, the gray-eyed gentleman adding that he had once met
+Poindexter, and had confidently taken him to be Lambert.
+
+An attempt was then made to prove that Lambert had murdered Poindexter;
+but it entirely failed, there being no evidence that the two men had
+ever so much as met, and there being no conceivable motive for the
+murder. Lambert, therefore, was permitted to enter undisturbed upon his
+inheritance; for he had no difficulty in establishing the fact of the
+elder Lambert's marriage to an Italian woman twenty-three years before.
+The marriage had been a secret one, and soon after a violent quarrel
+had taken place between the wife and husband, and they had separated.
+The following month Giovanni was born prematurely. He had seen his
+father but once. The quarrel was never made up, but Lambert sent his
+wife, from time to time, money enough for her support. She had died
+about ten years ago, and had given her son the papers to establish his
+identity, telling him that the day would come to use them. Giovanni had
+been a soldier, fighting against the French in Spain and elsewhere, and
+had only heard of his father's death a few weeks ago. He had thereupon
+come to claim his own, with the singular results that we have seen.
+
+Here was the end of the case, so far as the law was concerned; but the
+real end of it is worth noting. Lambert, by his own voluntary act, paid
+all the legal debts contracted by Poindexter, and gave Courtney, in
+settlement of the gambling transaction, a sum of fifty thousand pounds.
+The remainder of his fortune, which was still considerable, he devoted
+almost entirely to charitable purposes, doing so much genuine good, in
+a manner so hearty and unassuming, that he became the object of more
+personal affection than falls to the lot of most philanthropists. He
+was of a quiet, sad, and retiring disposition, and uniformly very
+sparing of words. After a year or so, circumstances brought it about
+that he and Miss Saltine were associated in some benevolent enterprise,
+and from that time forward they often consulted together in such
+matters, Lambert making her the medium of many of his benefactions. Of
+course the gossips were ready to predict that it would end with a
+marriage; and indeed it was impossible to see the two together (though
+both of them, and especially Edith, had altered somewhat with the
+passage of years) without being reminded of the former love affair in
+which Lambert's double had been the hero. Did this also occur to Edith?
+It could hardly have been otherwise, and it would be interesting to
+speculate on her feelings in the matter; but I have only the story to
+tell. At all events, they never did marry, though they became very
+tender friends. At the end of seven years Colonel Saltine died of
+jaundice; he had been failing in his mind for some time previous, and
+had always addressed Lambert as Poindexter, and spoken of him as his
+son-in-law. The year following Lambert himself died, after a brief
+illness. He left all his property to Edith. She survived to her
+seventieth year, making it the business of her life to carry out his
+philanthropic schemes, and she always dressed in widows' weeds. After
+her death, the following passage was found in one of her private
+journals. It refers to her last interview with Lambert, on his death-
+bed:
+
+".... He smiled, and said, 'You will believe, now, that I was sincere
+in renouncing the ministry, though I have tried to serve the Lord in
+other ways than from the pulpit.' I felt a shock in my heart, and could
+hardly say, 'What do you mean, Mr. Lambert?' He replied, 'Surely,
+Edith, your soul knows, if your reason does not, that I am David
+Poindexter!' I could not speak. I hid my face in my hands. After a
+while, in separate sentences, he told me the truth. When he rode forth
+on that dreadful morning it was with the purpose to die. But he met on
+the road this Giovanni Lambert, who so marvelously resembled him, and
+they sat down together in the wood and talked, and Giovanni told him
+all the story of his life.... As Giovanni was about to mount his horse,
+which was very restive, he saw a violet in the grass, and stooped to
+pick it. The horse lashed out with its heels, and struck him in the
+back of the neck and killed him.... Then the idea came to David to
+exchange clothes with the dead man, and to take his papers, and
+personate him. Thus, he could escape from the individuality which was
+his curse, and find his true self, as it were, in another person. He
+said, too, that his greatest hope had been to win my love and make me
+his wife; but he found that he could not bring himself to attempt that,
+unless he confessed his falsehood to me, and he had feared that this
+confession would turn me from him forever. I wept, and told him that my
+heart had been his almost from the first, because I always thought of
+him as David, and that I would have loved him through all things. He
+said, 'Then God has been more merciful to me than I deserve; but,
+doubtless, it is also of His mercy that we have remained unmarried.'
+But I was in an agony, and could not yet be reconciled. At last he
+said, 'Will you kiss me, Edith?' and afterward he said, 'My wife!' and
+that was his last word. But we shall meet again!"
+
+
+
+
+KEN'S MYSTERY.
+
+
+One cool October evening--it was the last day of the month, and
+unusually cool for the time of year--I made up my mind to go and spend
+an hour or two with my friend Keningale. Keningale was an artist (as
+well as a musical amateur and poet), and had a very delightful studio
+built onto his house, in which he was wont to sit of an evening. The
+studio had a cavernous fire-place, designed in imitation of the old-
+fashioned fire-places of Elizabethan manor-houses, and in it, when the
+temperature out-doors warranted, he would build up a cheerful fire of
+dry logs. It would suit me particularly well, I thought, to go and have
+a quiet pipe and chat in front of that fire with my friend.
+
+I had not had such a chat for a very long time--not, in fact, since
+Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his
+visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the
+time, "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far
+as we knew him, was more likely to do anything else than to study. He
+was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his
+habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of
+twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play,
+scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and figure-
+pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any regular
+training in art; but he was not a worker. Personally he was fine-
+looking, of good height and figure, active, healthy, and with a
+remarkably fine brow, and clear, full-gazing eye. Nobody was surprised
+at his going to Europe, nobody expected him to do anything there except
+amuse himself, and few anticipated that he would be soon again seen in
+New York. He was one of the sort that find Europe agree with them. Off
+he went, therefore; and in the course of a few months the rumor reached
+us that he was engaged to a handsome and wealthy New York girl whom he
+had met in London. This was nearly all we did hear of him until, not
+very long afterward, he turned up again on Fifth Avenue, to every one's
+astonishment; made no satisfactory answer to those who wanted to know
+how he happened to tire so soon of the Old World; while, as to the
+reported engagement, he cut short all allusion to that in so peremptory
+a manner as to show that it was not a permissible topic of conversation
+with him. It was surmised that the lady had jilted him; but, on the
+other hand, she herself returned home not a great while after, and,
+though she had plenty of opportunities, she has never married to this
+day.
+
+Be the rights of that matter what they may, it was soon remarked that
+Ken was no longer the careless and merry fellow he used to be; on the
+contrary, he appeared grave, moody, averse from general society, and
+habitually taciturn and undemonstrative even in the company of his most
+intimate friends. Evidently something had happened to him, or he had
+done something. What? Had he committed a murder? or joined the
+Nihilists? or was his unsuccessful love affair at the bottom of it?
+Some declared that the cloud was only temporary, and would soon pass
+away. Nevertheless, up to the period of which I am writing, it had not
+passed away, but had rather gathered additional gloom, and threatened
+to become permanent.
+
+Meanwhile I had met him twice or thrice at the club, at the opera, or
+in the street, but had as yet had no opportunity of regularly renewing
+my acquaintance with him. We had been on a footing of more than common
+intimacy in the old days, and I was not disposed to think that he would
+refuse to renew the former relations now. But what I had heard and
+myself seen of his changed condition imparted a stimulating tinge of
+suspense or curiosity to the pleasure with which I looked forward to
+the prospects of this evening. His house stood at a distance of two or
+three miles beyond the general range of habitations in New York at this
+time, and as I walked briskly along in the clear twilight air I had
+leisure to go over in my mind all that I had known of Ken and had
+divined of his character. After all, had there not always been
+something in his nature--deep down, and held in abeyance by the
+activity of his animal spirits--but something strange and separate, and
+capable of developing under suitable conditions into--into what? As I
+asked myself this question I arrived at his door; and it was with a
+feeling of relief that I felt the next moment the cordial grasp of his
+hand, and his voice bidding me welcome in a tone that indicated
+unaffected gratification at my presence. He drew me at once into the
+studio, relieved me of my hat and cane, and then put his hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+"I am glad to see you," he repeated, with singular earnestness--"glad
+to see you and to feel you; and to-night of all nights in the year."
+
+"Why to-night especially?"
+
+"Oh, never mind. It's just as well, too, you didn't let me know
+beforehand you were coming; the unreadiness is all, to paraphrase the
+poet. Now, with you to help me, I can drink a glass of whisky and water
+and take a bit draw of the pipe. This would have been a grim night for
+me if I'd been left to myself."
+
+"In such a lap of luxury as this, too!" said I, looking round at the
+glowing fire-place, the low, luxurious chairs, and all the rich and
+sumptuous fittings of the room. "I should have thought a condemned
+murderer might make himself comfortable here."
+
+"Perhaps; but that's not exactly my category at present. But have you
+forgotten what night this is? This is November-eve, when, as tradition
+asserts, the dead arise and walk about, and fairies, goblins, and
+spiritual beings of all kinds have more freedom and power than on any
+other day of the year. One can see you've never been in Ireland."
+
+"I wasn't aware till now that you had been there, either."
+
+"Yes, I have been in Ireland. Yes--" He paused, sighed, and fell into a
+reverie, from which, however, he soon roused himself by an effort, and
+went to a cabinet in a corner of the room for the liquor and tobacco.
+While he was thus employed I sauntered about the studio, taking note of
+the various beauties, grotesquenesses, and curiosities that it
+contained. Many things were there to repay study and arouse admiration;
+for Ken was a good collector, having excellent taste as well as means
+to back it. But, upon the whole, nothing interested me more than some
+studies of a female head, roughly done in oils, and, judging from the
+sequestered positions in which I found them, not intended by the artist
+for exhibition or criticism. There were three or four of these studies,
+all of the same face, but in different poses and costumes. In one the
+head was enveloped in a dark hood, overshadowing and partly concealing
+the features; in another she seemed to be peering duskily through a
+latticed casement, lit by a faint moonlight; a third showed her
+splendidly attired in evening costume, with jewels in her hair and
+cars, and sparkling on her snowy bosom. The expressions were as various
+as the poses; now it was demure penetration, now a subtle inviting
+glance, now burning passion, and again a look of elfish and elusive
+mockery. In whatever phase, the countenance possessed a singular and
+poignant fascination, not of beauty merely, though that was very
+striking, but of character and quality likewise.
+
+"Did you find this model abroad?" I inquired at length. "She has
+evidently inspired yon, and I don't wonder at it."
+
+Ken, who had been mixing the punch, and had not noticed my movements,
+now looked up, and said: "I didn't mean those to be seen. They don't
+satisfy me, and I am going to destroy them; but I couldn't rest till
+I'd made some attempts to reproduce--What was it you asked? Abroad?
+Yes--or no. They were all painted here within the last six weeks."
+
+'"Whether they satisfy you or not, they are by far the best things of
+yours I have ever seen."
+
+'"Well, let them alone, and tell me what you think of this beverage. To
+my thinking, it goes to the right spot. It owes its existence to your
+coming here. I can't drink alone, and those portraits are not company,
+though, for aught I know, she might have come out of the canvas to-
+night and sat down in that chair." Then, seeing my inquiring look, he
+added, with a hasty laugh, "It's November-eve, you know, when anything
+may happen, provided its strange enough. Well, here's to ourselves."
+
+We each swallowed a deep draught of the smoking and aromatic liquor,
+and set down our glasses with approval. The punch was excellent. Ken
+now opened a box of cigars, and we seated ourselves before the fire-
+place.
+
+"All we need now," I remarked, after a short silence, "is a little
+music. By-the-by, Ken, have you still got the banjo I gave you before
+you went abroad?"
+
+He paused so long before replying that I supposed he had not heard my
+question. "I have got it," he said, at length, "but it will never make
+any more music."
+
+"Got broken, eh? Can't it be mended? It was a fine instrument."
+
+"It's not broken, but it's past mending. You shall see for yourself."
+
+He arose as he spoke, and going to another part of the studio, opened a
+black oak coffer, and took out of it a long object wrapped up in a
+piece of faded yellow silk. He handed it to me, and when I had
+unwrapped it, there appeared a thing that might once have been a banjo,
+but had little resemblance to one now. It bore every sign of extreme
+age. The wood of the handle was honeycombed with the gnawings of worms,
+and dusty with dry-rot. The parchment head was green with mold, and
+hung in shriveled tatters. The hoop, which was of solid silver, was so
+blackened and tarnished that it looked like dilapidated iron. The
+strings were gone, and most of the tuning-screws had dropped out of
+their decayed sockets. Altogether it had the appearance of having been
+made before the Flood, and been forgotten in the forecastle of Noah's
+Ark ever since.
+
+"It is a curious relic, certainly," I said. "Where did you come across
+it? I had no idea that the banjo was invented so long ago as this. It
+certainly can't be less than two hundred years old, and may be much
+older than that."
+
+Ken smiled gloomily. "You are quite right," lie said; "it is at least
+two hundred years old, and yet it is the very same banjo that you gave
+me a year ago."
+
+"Hardly," I returned, smiling in my turn, "since that was made to my
+order with a view to presenting it to you."
+
+"I know that; but the two hundred years have passed since then. Yes; it
+is absurd and impossible, I know, but nothing is truer. That banjo,
+which was made last year, existed in the sixteenth century, and has
+been rotting ever since. Stay. Give it to me a moment, and I'll
+convince you. You recollect that your name and mine, with the date,
+were engraved on the silver hoop?"
+
+"Yes; and there was a private mark of my own there, also."
+
+"Very well," said Ken, who had been rubbing a place on the hoop with a
+corner of the yellow silk wrapper; "look at that."
+
+I took the decrepit instrument from him, and examined the spot which he
+had rubbed. It was incredible, sure enough; but there were the names
+and the date precisely as I had caused them to be engraved; and there,
+moreover, was my own private mark, which I had idly made with an old
+etching point not more than eighteen months before. After convincing
+myself that there was no mistake, I laid the banjo across my knees, and
+stared at my friend in bewilderment. He sat smoking with a kind of grim
+composure, his eyes fixed upon the blazing logs.
+
+"I'm mystified, I confess," said I. "Come; what is the joke? What
+method have you discovered of producing the decay of centuries on this
+unfortunate banjo in a few months? And why did you do it? I have heard
+of an elixir to counteract the effects of time, but your recipe seems
+to work the other way--to make time rush forward at two hundred times
+his usual rate, in one place, while he jogs on at his usual gait
+elsewhere. Unfold your mystery, magician. Seriously, Ken, how on earth
+did the thing happen?"
+
+"I know no more about it than you do," was his reply. "Either you and I
+and all the rest of the living world are insane, or else there has been
+wrought a miracle as strange as any in tradition. How can I explain it?
+It is a common saying--a common experience, if you will--that we may,
+on certain trying or tremendous occasions, live years in one moment.
+But that's a mental experience, not a physical one, and one that
+applies, at all events, only to human beings, not to senseless things
+of wood and metal. You imagine the thing is some trick or jugglery. If
+it be, I don't know the secret of it. There's no chemical appliance
+that I ever heard of that will get a piece of solid wood into that
+condition in a few months, or a few years. And it wasn't done in a few
+years, or a few months either. A year ago today at this very hour that
+banjo was as sound as when it left the maker's hands, and twenty-four
+hours afterward--I'm telling you the simple truth--it was as you see it
+now."
+
+The gravity and earnestness with which Ken made this astounding
+statement were evidently not assumed, He believed every word that he
+uttered. I knew not what to think. Of course my friend might be insane,
+though he betrayed none of the ordinary symptoms of mania; but, however
+that might be, there was the banjo, a witness whose silent testimony
+there was no gainsaying. The more I meditated on the matter the more
+inconceivable did it appear. Two hundred years--twenty-four hours;
+these were the terms of the proposed equation. Ken and the banjo both
+affirmed that the equation had been made; all worldly knowledge and
+experience affirmed it to be impossible. "What was the explanation?
+What is time? What is life? I felt myself beginning to doubt the
+reality of all things. And so this was the mystery which my friend had
+been brooding over since his return from abroad. No wonder it had
+changed him. More to be wondered at was it that it had not changed him
+more.
+
+"Can you tell me the whole story?" I demanded at length.
+
+Ken quaffed another draught from his glass of whisky and water and
+rubbed his hand through his thick brown beard. "I have never spoken to
+any one of it heretofore," he said, "and I had never meant to speak of
+it. But I'll try and give you some idea of what it was. You know me
+better than any one else; you'll understand the thing as far as it can
+ever be understood, and perhaps I may be relieved of some of the
+oppression it has caused me. For it is rather a ghastly memory to
+grapple with alone, I can tell you."
+
+Hereupon, without further preface, Ken related the following tale. He
+was, I may observe in passing, a naturally fine narrator. There were
+deep, lingering tones in his voice, and he could strikingly enhance the
+comic or pathetic effect of a sentence by dwelling here and there upon
+some syllable. His features were equally susceptible of humorous and of
+solemn expressions, and his eyes were in form and hue wonderfully
+adapted to showing great varieties of emotion. Their mournful aspect
+was extremely earnest and affecting; and when Ken was giving utterance
+to some mysterious passage of the tale they had a doubtful, melancholy,
+exploring look which appealed irresistibly to the imagination. But the
+interest of his story was too pressing to allow of noticing these
+incidental embellishments at the time, though they doubtless had their
+influence upon me all the same.
+
+"I left New York on an Inman Line steamer, you remember," began Ken,
+"and landed at Havre. I went the usual round of sight-seeing on the
+Continent, and got round to London in July, at the height of the
+season. I had good introductions, and met any number of agreeable and
+famous people. Among others was a young lady, a countrywoman of my own
+--you know whom I mean--who interested me very much, and before her
+family left London she and I were engaged. We parted there for the
+time, because she had the Continental trip still to make, while I
+wanted to take the opportunity to visit the north of England and
+Ireland. I landed at Dublin about the 1st of October, and, zigzagging
+about the country, I found myself in County Cork about two weeks later.
+
+"There is in that region some of the most lovely scenery that human
+eyes ever rested on, and it seems to be less known to tourists than
+many places of infinitely less picturesque value. A lonely region too:
+during my rambles I met not a single stranger like myself, and few
+enough natives. It seems incredible that so beautiful a country should
+be so deserted. After walking a dozen Irish miles you come across a
+group of two or three one-roomed cottages, and, like as not, one or
+more of those will have the roof off and the walls in ruins. The few
+peasants whom one sees, however, are affable and hospitable, especially
+when they hear you are from that terrestrial heaven whither most of
+their friends and relatives have gone before them. They seem simple and
+primitive enough at first sight, and yet they are as strange and
+incomprehensible a race as any in the world. They are as superstitious,
+as credulous of marvels, fairies, magicians, and omens, as the men whom
+St. Patrick preached to, and at the same time they are shrewd,
+skeptical, sensible, and bottomless liars. Upon the whole, I met with
+no nation on my travels whose company I enjoyed so much, or who
+inspired me with so much kindliness, curiosity, and repugnance.
+
+"At length I got to a place on the sea-coast, which I will not further
+specify than to say that it is not many miles from Ballymacheen, on the
+south shore. I have seen Venice and Naples, I have driven along the
+Cornice Road, I have spent a month at our own Mount Desert, and I say
+that all of them together are not so beautiful as this glowing, deep-
+hued, soft-gleaming, silvery-lighted, ancient harbor and town, with the
+tall hills crowding round it and the black cliffs and headlands
+planting their iron feet in the blue, transparent sea. It is a very old
+place, and has had a history which it has outlived ages since. It may
+once have had two or three thousand inhabitants; it has scarce five or
+six hundred to day. Half the houses are in ruins or have disappeared;
+many of the remainder are standing empty. All the people are poor, most
+of them abjectly so; they saunter about with bare feet and uncovered
+heads, the women in quaint black or dark-blue cloaks, the men in such
+anomalous attire as only an Irishman knows how to get together, the
+children half naked. The only comfortable-looking people are the monks
+and the priests, and the soldiers in the fort. For there is a fort
+there, constructed on the huge ruins of one which may have done duty in
+the reign of Edward the Black Prince, or earlier, in whose mossy
+embrasures are mounted a couple of cannon, which occasionally sent a
+practice-shot or two at the cliff on the other side of the harbor. The
+garrison consists of a dozen men and three or four officers and non-
+commissioned officers. I suppose they are relieved occasionally, but
+those I saw seemed to have become component parts of their
+surroundings.
+
+"I put up at a wonderful little old inn, the only one in the place, and
+took my meals in a dining-saloon fifteen feet by nine, with a portrait
+of George I (a print varnished to preserve it) hanging over the mantel-
+piece. On the second evening after dinner a young gentleman came in--
+the dining-saloon being public property of course--and ordered some
+bread and cheese and a bottle of Dublin stout. We presently fell into
+talk; he turned out to be an officer from the fort, Lieutenant
+O'Connor, and a fine young specimen of the Irish soldier he was. After
+telling me all he knew about the town, the surrounding country, his
+friends, and himself, he intimated a readiness to sympathize with
+whatever tale I might choose to pour into his ear; and I had pleasure
+in trying to rival his own outspokenness. We became excellent friends;
+we had up a half-pint of Kinahan's whisky, and the lieutenant expressed
+himself in terms of high praise of my countrymen, my country, and my
+own particular cigars. When it became time for him to depart I
+accompanied him--for there was a splendid moon abroad--and bade him
+farewell at the fort entrance, having promised to come over the next
+day and make the acquaintance of the other fellows. 'And mind your eye,
+now, going back, my dear boy,' he called out, as I turned my face
+homeward. 'Faith, 'tis a spooky place, that graveyard, and you'll as
+likely meet the black woman there as anywhere else!'
+
+"The graveyard was a forlorn and barren spot on the hill-side, just the
+hither side of the fort: thirty or forty rough head-stones, few of
+which retained any semblance of the perpendicular, while many were so
+shattered and decayed as to seem nothing more than irregular natural
+projections from the ground. Who the black woman might be I knew not,
+and did not stay to inquire. I had never been subject to ghostly
+apprehensions, and as a matter of fact, though the path I had to follow
+was in places very bad going, not to mention a hap-hazard scramble over
+a ruined bridge that covered a deep-lying brook, I reached my inn
+without any adventure whatever.
+
+"The next day I kept my appointment at the fort, and found no reason to
+regret it; and my friendly sentiments were abundantly reciprocated,
+thanks more especially, perhaps, to the success of my banjo, which I
+carried with me, and which was as novel as it was popular with those
+who listened to it. The chief personages in the social circle besides
+my friend the lieutenant were Major Molloy, who was in command, a racy
+and juicy old campaigner, with a face like a sunset, and the surgeon,
+Dr. Dudeen, a long, dry, humorous genius, with a wealth of anecdotical
+and traditional lore at his command that I have never seen surpassed.
+We had a jolly time of it, and it was the precursor of many more like
+it. The remains of October slipped away rapidly, and I was obliged to
+remember that I was a traveler in Europe, and not a resident in
+Ireland. The major, the surgeon, and the lieutenant all protested
+cordially against my proposed departure, but, as there was no help for
+it, they arranged a farewell dinner to take place in the fort on All-
+halloween.
+
+"I wish you could have been at that dinner with me! It was the essence
+of Irish good-fellowship. Dr. Dudeen was in great force; the major was
+better than the best of Lever's novels; the lieutenant was overflowing
+with hearty good-humor, merry chaff, and sentimental rhapsodies anent
+this or the other pretty girl of the neighborhood. For my part I made
+the banjo ring as it had never rung before, and the others joined in
+the chorus with a mellow strength of lungs such as you don't often hear
+outside of Ireland. Among the stories that Dr. Dudeen regaled us with
+was one about the Kern of Querin and his wife, Ethelind Fionguala--
+which being interpreted signifies 'the white-shouldered.' The lady, it
+appears, was originally betrothed to one O'Connor (here the lieutenant
+smacked his lips), but was stolen away on the wedding night by a party
+of vampires, who, it would seem, were at that period a prominent
+feature among the troubles of Ireland. But as they were bearing her
+along--she being unconscious--to that supper where she was not to eat
+but to be eaten, the young Kern of Querin, who happened to be out duck-
+shooting, met the party, and emptied his gun at it. The vampires fled,
+and the Kern carried the fair lady, still in a state of insensibility,
+to his house. 'And by the same token, Mr. Keningale,' observed the
+doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, 'ye're after passing that
+very house on your way here. The one with the dark archway underneath
+it, and the big mullioned window at the corner, ye recollect, hanging
+over the street as I might say--'
+
+"'Go 'long wid the house, Dr. Dudeen, dear,' interrupted the
+lieutenant; 'sure can't you see we're all dying to know what happened
+to sweet Miss Fionguala, God be good to her, when I was after getting
+her safe up-stairs--'
+
+"'Faith, then, I can tell ye that myself, Mr. O'Connor,' exclaimed the
+major, imparting a rotary motion to the remnants of whisky in his
+tumbler. ''Tis a question to be solved on general principles, as
+Colonel O'Halloran said that time he was asked what he'd do if he'd
+been the Book o' Wellington, and the Prussians hadn't come up in the
+nick o' time at Waterloo. 'Faith,' says the colonel, 'I'll tell ye--'
+
+"'Arrah, then, major, why would ye be interruptin' the doctor, and Mr.
+Keningale there lettin' his glass stay empty till he hears--The Lord
+save us! the bottle's empty!'
+
+"In the excitement consequent upon this discovery, the thread of the
+doctor's story was lost; and before it could be recovered the evening
+had advanced so far that I felt obliged to withdraw. It took some time
+to make my proposition heard and comprehended; and a still longer time
+to put it in execution; so that it was fully midnight before I found
+myself standing in the cool pure air outside the fort, with the
+farewells of my boon companions ringing in my ears.
+
+"Considering that it had been rather a wet evening in-doors, I was in a
+remarkably good state of preservation, and I therefore ascribed it
+rather to the roughness of the road than to the smoothness of the
+liquor, when, after advancing a few rods, I stumbled and fell. As I
+picked myself up I fancied I had heard a laugh, and supposed that the
+lieutenant, who had accompanied me to the gate, was making merry over
+my mishap; but on looking round I saw that the gate was closed and no
+one was visible. The laugh, moreover, had seemed to be close at hand,
+and to be even pitched in a key that was rather feminine than
+masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my
+imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than
+poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of
+disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble
+is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I
+remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I
+was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my way
+immediately.
+
+"But the path was singularly difficult to find, or rather the path I
+was following did not seem to be the right one. I did not recognize it;
+I could have sworn (except I knew the contrary) that I had never seen
+it before. The moon had risen, though her light was as yet obscured by
+clouds, but neither my immediate surroundings nor the general aspect of
+the region appeared familiar. Dark, silent hill-sides mounted up on
+either hand, and the road, for the most part, plunged downward, as if
+to conduct me into the bowels of the earth. The place was alive with
+strange echoes, so that at times I seemed to be walking through the
+midst of muttering voices and mysterious whispers, and a wild, faint
+sound of laughter seemed ever and anon to reverberate among the passes
+of the hills. Currents of colder air sighing up through narrow defiles
+and dark crevices touched my face as with airy fingers. A certain
+feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to take possession of me,
+though there was no definable cause for it, unless that I might be
+belated in getting home. With the perverse instinct of those who are
+lost I hastened my steps, but was impelled now and then to glance back
+over my shoulder, with a sensation of being pursued. But no living
+creature was in sight. The moon, however, had now risen higher, and the
+clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked
+valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked
+like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms.
+
+"How long I had been hurrying onward I know not, when, with a kind of
+suddenness, I found myself approaching a graveyard. It was situated on
+the spur of a hill, and there was no fence around it, nor anything to
+protect it from the incursions of passers-by. There was something in
+the general appearance of this spot that made me half fancy I had seen
+it before; and I should have taken it to be the same that I had often
+noticed on my way to the fort, but that the latter was only a few
+hundred yards distant therefrom, whereas I must have traversed several
+miles at least. As I drew near, moreover, I observed that the head-
+stones did not appear so ancient and decayed as those of the other. But
+what chiefly attracted my attention was the figure that was leaning or
+half sitting upon one of the largest of the upright slabs near the
+road. It was a female figure draped in black, and a closer inspection--
+for I was soon within a few yards of her--showed that she wore the
+calla, or long hooded cloak, the most common as well as the most
+ancient garment of Irish women, and doubtless of Spanish origin.
+
+"I was a trifle startled by this apparition, so unexpected as it was,
+and so strange did it seem that any human creature should be at that
+hour of the night in so desolate and sinister a place. Involuntarily I
+paused as I came opposite her, and gazed at her intently. But the
+moonlight fell behind her, and the deep hood of her cloak so completely
+shadowed her face that I was unable to discern anything but the sparkle
+of a pair of eyes, which appeared to be returning my gaze with much
+vivacity.
+
+"'You seem to be at home here,' I said, at length. 'Can you tell me
+where I am?'
+
+"Hereupon the mysterious personage broke into a light laugh, which,
+though in itself musical and agreeable, was of a timbre and intonation
+that caused my heart to beat rather faster than my late pedestrian
+exertions warranted; for it was the identical laugh (or so my
+imagination persuaded me) that had echoed in my ears as I arose from my
+tumble an hour or two ago. For the rest, it was the laugh of a young
+woman, and presumably of a pretty one; and yet it had a wild, airy,
+mocking quality, that seemed hardly human at all, or not, at any rate,
+characteristic of a being of affections and limitations like unto ours.
+But this impression of mine was fostered, no doubt, by the unusual and
+uncanny circumstances of the occasion.
+
+"'Sure, sir,' said she, 'you're at the grave of Ethelind Fionguala.'
+
+"As she spoke she rose to her feet, and pointed to the inscription on
+the stone. I bent forward, and was able, without much difficulty, to
+decipher the name, and a date which indicated that the occupant of the
+grave must have entered the disembodied state between two and three
+centuries ago.
+
+"'And who are you?' was my next question.
+
+"'I'm called Elsie,' she replied. 'But where would your honor be going
+November-eve?'
+
+"I mentioned my destination, and asked her whether she could direct me
+thither.
+
+"'Indeed, then, 'tis there I'm going myself,' Elsie replied; 'and if
+your honor'll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument,
+'tisn't long we'll be on the road.'
+
+"She pointed to the banjo which I carried wrapped up under my arm. How
+she knew that it was a musical instrument I could not imagine;
+possibly, I thought, she may have seen me playing on it as I strolled
+about the environs of the town. Be that as it may, I offered no
+opposition to the bargain, and further intimated that I would reward
+her more substantially on our arrival. At that she laughed again, and
+made a peculiar gesture with her hand above her head. I uncovered my
+banjo, swept my fingers across the strings, and struck into a fantastic
+dance-measure, to the music of which we proceeded along the path, Elsie
+slightly in advance, her feet keeping time to the airy measure. In
+fact, she trod so lightly, with an elastic, undulating movement, that
+with a little more it seemed as if she might float onward like a
+spirit. The extreme whiteness of her feet attracted my eye, and I was
+surprised to find that instead of being bare, as I had supposed, these
+were incased in white satin slippers quaintly embroidered with gold
+thread.
+
+"'Elsie,' said I, lengthening my steps so as to come up with her,
+'where do you live, and what do you do for a living?'
+
+"'Sure, I live by myself,' she answered; 'and if you'd be after knowing
+how, you must come and see for yourself.'
+
+"'Are you in the habit of walking over the hills at night in shoes like
+that?'
+
+"'And why would I not?' she asked, in her turn. 'And where did your
+honor get the pretty gold ring on your finger?'
+
+"The ring, which was of no great intrinsic value, had struck my eye in
+an old curiosity-shop in Cork. It was an antique of very old-fashioned
+design, and might have belonged (as the vender assured me was the case)
+to one of the early kings or queens of Ireland.
+
+"'Do you like it?' said I.
+
+"'Will your honor be after making a present of it to Elsie?' she
+returned, with an insinuating tone and turn of the head.
+
+"'Maybe I will, Elsie, on one condition. I am an artist; I make
+pictures of people. If you will promise to come to my studio and let me
+paint your portrait, I'll give you the ring, and some money besides.'
+
+"'And will you give me the ring now?' said Elsie.
+
+"'Yes, if you'll promise.'
+
+"'And will you play the music to me?' she continued.
+
+"'As much as you like.'
+
+"'But maybe I'll not be handsome enough for ye,' said she, with a
+glance of her eyes beneath the dark hood.
+
+"'I'll take the risk of that,' I answered, laughing, 'though, all the
+same, I don't mind taking a peep beforehand to remember you by.' So
+saying, I put forth a hand to draw back the concealing hood. But Elsie
+eluded me, I scarce know how, and laughed a third time, with the same
+airy, mocking cadence.
+
+"'Give me the ring first, and then you shall see me,' she said,
+coaxingly.
+
+"'Stretch out your hand, then,' returned I, removing the ring from my
+finger. 'When we are better acquainted, Elsie, you won't be so
+suspicious.'
+
+"She held out a slender, delicate hand, on the forefinger of which I
+slipped the ring. As I did so, the folds of her cloak fell a little
+apart, affording me a glimpse of a white shoulder and of a dress that
+seemed in that deceptive semi-darkness to be wrought of rich and costly
+material; and I caught, too, or so I fancied, the frosty sparkle of
+precious stones.
+
+"'Arrah, mind where ye tread!' said Elsie, in a sudden, sharp tone.
+
+"I looked round, and became aware for the first time that we were
+standing near the middle of a ruined bridge which spanned a rapid
+stream that flowed at a considerable depth below. The parapet of the
+bridge on one side was broken down, and I must have been, in fact, in
+imminent danger of stepping over into empty air. I made my way
+cautiously across the decaying structure; but, when I turned to assist
+Elsie, she was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"What had become of the girl? I called, but no answer came. I gazed
+about on every side, but no trace of her was visible. Unless she had
+plunged into the narrow abyss at my feet, there was no place where she
+could have concealed herself--none at least that I could discover. She
+had vanished, nevertheless; and since her disappearance must have been
+premeditated, I finally came to the conclusion that it was useless to
+attempt to find her. She would present herself again in her own good
+time, or not at all. She had given me the slip very cleverly, and I
+must make the best of it. The adventure was perhaps worth the ring.
+
+"On resuming my way, I was not a little relieved to find that I once
+more knew where I was. The bridge that I had just crossed was none
+other than the one I mentioned some time back; I was within a mile of
+the town, and my way lay clear before me. The moon, moreover, had now
+quite dispersed the clouds, and shone down with exquisite brilliance.
+Whatever her other failings, Elsie had been a trustworthy guide; she
+had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world
+again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it
+with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming
+snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what
+light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie
+was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred
+several times before I reached the outskirts of the town--the tread of
+an airy foot behind or beside my own. The fancy did not make me
+nervous; on the contrary, I was pleased with the notion of being thus
+haunted, and gave myself up to a romantic and genial vein of reverie.
+
+"After passing one or two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered
+the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This
+street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the
+wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the
+northern side. The house was built of stone, and in a noble style of
+architecture; it reminded me somewhat of certain palaces of the old
+Italian nobility that I had seen on the Continent, and it may very
+probably have been built by one of the Italian or Spanish immigrants of
+the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The molding of the projecting
+windows and arched doorway was richly carved, and upon the front of the
+building was an escutcheon wrought in high relief, though I could not
+make out the purport of the device. The moonlight falling upon this
+picturesque pile enhanced all its beauties, and at the same time made
+it seem like a vision that might dissolve away when the light ceased to
+shine. I must often have seen the house before, and yet I retained no
+definite recollection of it; I had never until now examined it with my
+eyes open, so to speak. Leaning against the wall on the opposite side
+of the street, I contemplated it for a long while at my leisure. The
+window at the corner was really a very fine and massive affair. It
+projected over the pavement below, throwing a heavy shadow aslant; the
+frames of the diamond-paned lattices were heavily mullioned. How often
+in past ages had that lattice been pushed open by some fair hand,
+revealing to a lover waiting beneath in the moonlight the charming
+countenance of his high-born mistress! Those were brave days. They had
+passed away long since. The great house had stood empty for who could
+tell how many years; only bats and vermin were its inhabitants. Where
+now were those who had built it? and who were they? Probably the very
+name of them was forgotten.
+
+"As I continued to stare upward, however, a conjecture presented itself
+to my mind which rapidly ripened into a conviction. Was not this the
+house that Dr. Dudeen had described that very evening as having been
+formerly the abode of the Kern of Querin and his mysterious bride?
+There was the projecting window, the arched doorway. Yes, beyond a
+doubt this was the very house. I emitted a low exclamation of renewed
+interest and pleasure, and my speculations took a still more
+imaginative, but also a more definite turn.
+
+"What had been the fate of that lovely lady after the Kern had brought
+her home insensible in his arms? Did she recover, and were they married
+and made happy ever after; or had the sequel been a tragic one? I
+remembered to have read that the victims of vampires generally became
+vampires themselves. Then my thoughts went back to that grave on the
+hill-side. Surely that was unconsecrated ground. Why had they buried
+her there? Ethelind of the white shoulder! Ah! why had not I lived in
+those days; or why might not some magic cause them to live again for
+me? Then would I seek this street at midnight, and standing here
+beneath her window, I would lightly touch the strings of my bandore
+until the casement opened cautiously and she looked down. A sweet
+vision indeed! And what prevented my realizing it? Only a matter of a
+couple of centuries or so. And was time, then, at which poets and
+philosophers sneer, so rigid and real a matter that a little faith and
+imagination might not overcome it? At all events, I had my banjo, the
+bandore's legitimate and lineal descendant, and the memory of Fionguala
+should have the love-ditty.
+
+"Hereupon, having retuned the instrument, I launched forth into an old
+Spanish love-song, which I had met with in some moldy library during my
+travels, and had set to music of my own. I sang low, for the deserted
+street re-echoed the lightest sound, and what I sang must reach only my
+lady's ears. The words were warm with the fire of the ancient Spanish
+chivalry, and I threw into their expression all the passion of the
+lovers of romance. Surely Fionguala, the white-shouldered, would hear,
+and awaken from her sleep of centuries, and come to the latticed
+casement and look down! Hist! see yonder! What light--what shadow is
+that that seems to flit from room to room within the abandoned house,
+and now approaches the mullioned window? Are my eyes dazzled by the
+play of the moonlight, or does the casement move--does it open? Nay,
+this is no delusion; there is no error of the senses here. There is
+simply a woman, young, beautiful, and richly attired, bending forward
+from the window, and silently beckoning me to approach.
+
+"Too much amazed to be conscious of amazement, I advanced until I stood
+directly beneath the casement, and the lady's face, as she stooped
+toward me, was not more than twice a man's height from my own. She
+smiled and kissed her finger-tips; something white fluttered in her
+hand, then fell through the air to the ground at my feet. The next
+moment she had withdrawn, and I heard the lattice close. I picked up
+what she had let fall; it was a delicate lace handkerchief,
+tied to the handle of an elaborately wrought bronze key. It was
+evidently the key of the house, and invited me to enter. I loosened it
+from the handkerchief, which bore a faint, delicious perfume, like the
+aroma of flowers in an ancient garden, and turned to the arched
+doorway. I felt no misgiving, and scarcely any sense of strangeness.
+All was as I had wished it to be, and as it should be; the mediaeval
+age was alive once more, and as for myself, I almost felt the velvet
+cloak hanging from my shoulder and the long rapier dangling at my belt.
+Standing in front of the door I thrust the key into the lock, turned
+it, and felt the bolt yield. The next instant the door was opened,
+apparently from within; I stepped across the threshold, the door closed
+again, and I was alone in the house, and in darkness.
+
+"Not alone, however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met
+by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself
+gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath;
+the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a
+dress close to me, and the same delicious perfume that had emanated
+from the handkerchief enriched the air that I breathed, while the
+little hand that clasped and was clasped by my own alternately
+tightened and half relaxed the hold of its soft cold fingers. In this
+manner, and treading lightly, we traversed what I presumed to be a
+long, irregular passageway, and ascended a staircase. Then another
+corridor, until finally we paused, a door opened, emitting a flood of
+soft light, into which we entered, still hand in hand. The darkness and
+the doubt were at an end.
+
+"The room was of imposing dimensions, and was furnished and decorated
+in a style of antique splendor. The walls were draped with mellow hues
+of tapestry; clusters of candles burned in polished silver sconces, and
+were reflected and multiplied in tall mirrors placed in the four
+corners of the room. The heavy beams of the dark oaken ceiling crossed
+each other in squares, and were laboriously carved; the curtains and
+the drapery of the chairs were of heavy-figured damask. At one end of
+the room was a broad ottoman, and in front of it a table, on which was
+set forth, in massive silver dishes, a sumptuous repast, with wines in
+crystal beakers. At the side was a vast and deep fire-place, with space
+enough on the broad hearth to burn whole trunks of trees. No fire,
+however, was there, but only a great heap of dead embers; and the room,
+for all its magnificence, was cold--cold as a tomb, or as my lady's
+hand--and it sent a subtle chill creeping to my heart.
+
+"But my lady! how fair she was! I gave but a passing glance at the
+room; my eyes and my thoughts were all for her. She was dressed in
+white, like a bride; diamonds sparkled in her dark hair and on her
+snowy bosom; her lovely face and slender lips were pale, and all the
+paler for the dusky glow of her eyes. She gazed at me with a strange,
+elusive smile; and yet there was, in her aspect and bearing, something
+familiar in the midst of strangeness, like the burden of a song heard
+long ago and recalled among other conditions and surroundings. It
+seemed to me that something in me recognized her and knew her, had
+known her always. She was the woman of whom I had dreamed, whom I had
+beheld in visions, whose voice and face had haunted me from boyhood up.
+Whether we had ever met before, as human beings meet, I knew not;
+perhaps I had been blindly seeking her all over the world, and she had
+been awaiting me in this splendid room, sitting by those dead embers
+until all the warmth had gone out of her blood, only to be restored by
+the heat with which my love might supply her.
+
+"'I thought you had forgotten me,' she said, nodding as if in answer to
+my thought. 'The night was so late--our one night of the year! How my
+heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so
+well! Kiss me--my lips are cold!'
+
+"Cold indeed they were--cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my
+own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and
+in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller
+breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that
+was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table
+and pointed to the viands and the wine.
+
+"'Eat and drink,' she said. 'You have traveled far, and you need food.'
+
+"'Will you eat and drink with me?' said I, pouring out the wine.
+
+"'You are the only nourishment I want,' was her answer.' This wine is
+thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I
+will drain a goblet to the dregs.'
+
+"At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She
+seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of
+the great room struck into me more and more.
+
+"She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and
+dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was
+she mocking mo when she implied that we had belonged to each other of
+old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her
+breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an
+antique ring.
+
+"'Where did you get that ring?' I demanded.
+
+"She shook her head and laughed. 'Have you been faithful?' she asked.
+'It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave
+me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern--the fairy ring,
+and I am your Ethelind--Ethelind Fionguala.'
+
+"'So be it,' I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding
+myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips.
+'You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours
+last.'
+
+"'You are mine, and I am yours,' she repeated, nodding her head with an
+elfish smile. 'Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again
+that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.'
+
+"We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously
+among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the
+music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing
+echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind
+Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes.
+She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame
+within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the
+last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can
+never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken,
+the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like
+the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself
+lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white
+shoulder."
+
+Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log
+upon the fire, and then continued:
+
+"I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in
+a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls,
+and heavy festoons of spiders' webs gray with dust covered the windows,
+which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with
+rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted
+through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly
+draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement,
+detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me,
+and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering
+noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily
+from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying,
+something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with
+a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo--as you see it
+now.
+
+"Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired;
+all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and
+haggard, and the chill--Ah, that chill," murmured Keningale, drawing
+nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth--"
+I shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave."
+
+
+
+
+"WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE."
+
+
+"What a beautiful girl!" said Mr. Ambrose Drayton to himself; "and how
+much she looks like--" He cut the comparison short, and turned his eyes
+seaward, pulling at his mustache meditatively the while.
+
+"This American atmosphere, fresh and pure as it is in the nostrils, is
+heavy-laden  with reminiscences," his thoughts ran on. "Reminiscences,
+but always with differences, the chief difference being, no doubt, in
+myself. And no wonder. Nineteen years; yes, it's positively nineteen
+years since I stood here and gazed out through yonder gap between the
+headlands. Nineteen years of foreign lands, foreign men and manners,
+the courts, the camps, the schools; adventure, business, and pleasure--
+if I may lightly use so mysterious a word. Nineteen and twenty are
+thirty-nine; in my case say sixty at least. Why, a girl like that
+lovely young thing walking away there with her light step and her
+innocent heart would take me to be sixty to a dead certainty. A rather
+well-preserved man of sixty--that's how she'd describe me to the young
+fellow she's given her heart to. Well, sixty or forty, what difference?
+When a man has passed the age at which he falls in love, he is the peer
+of Methuselah from that time forth. But what a fiery season that of
+love is while it lasts! Ay, and it burns something out of the soul that
+never grows again. And well that it should do so: a susceptible heart
+is a troublesome burden to lug round the world. Curious that I should
+be even thinking of such things: association, I suppose. Here it was
+that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then!
+A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky
+headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old
+farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with
+its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago,
+and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but
+meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and plank
+walks, and bridges, and bathing-houses, and pleasure-boats! And what an
+admirable concourse of well-dressed and pleasurably inclined men and
+women! After all, my countrymen are the finest-looking and most
+prosperous-appearing people on the globe. They have traveled a little
+faster than I have, and on a somewhat different track; but I would
+rather be among them than anywhere else. Yes, I won't go back to
+London, nor yet to Paris, or Calcutta, or Cairo. I'll buy a cottage
+here at Squittig Point, and live and die here and in New York. I wonder
+whether Mary is alive and mother of a dozen children, or--not!"
+
+"Auntie," said Miss Leithe to her relative, as they regained the
+veranda of their cottage after their morning stroll on the beach, "who
+was that gentleman who looked at us?"
+
+"Hey?--who?" inquired the widow of the late Mr. Corwin, absently.
+
+"The one in the thin gray suit and Panama hat; you must have seen him.
+A very distinguished-looking man and yet very simple and pleasant;
+like some of those nice middle-aged men that you see in 'Punch,'
+slenderly built, with handsome chin and eyes, and thick mustache and
+whiskers. Oh, auntie, why do you never notice things? I think a man
+between forty and fifty is ever so much nicer than when they're
+younger. They know how to be courteous, and they're not afraid of being
+natural. I mean this one looks as if he would. But he must be somebody
+remarkable in some way--don't you think so? There's something about
+him--something graceful and gentle and refined and manly--that makes
+most other men seem common beside him. Who do you suppose he can be?"
+
+"Who?--what have you been saying, my dear?" inquired Aunt Corwin,
+rousing herself from the perusal of a letter. "Here's Sarah writes that
+Frank Redmond was to sail from Havre the 20th; so he won't be here for
+a week or ten days yet."
+
+"Well, he might not have come at all," said the girl, coloring
+slightly. "I'm sure I didn't think he would, when he went away."
+
+"You are both of you a year older and wiser," said the widow,
+meditatively; "and you have learned, I hope, not to irritate a man
+needlessly. I never irritated Corwin in all my life. They don't
+understand it."
+
+"Here comes Mr. Haymaker," observed Miss Leithe. "I shall ask him."
+
+"Don't ask him in," said Mrs. Corwin, retiring; "he chatters like an
+organ-grinder."
+
+"Oh, good-morning, Miss Mary!" exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, as he mounted
+the steps of the veranda, with his hands extended and his customary
+effusion. "How charming you are looking after your bath and your walk
+and all! Did you ever see such a charming morning? I never was at a
+place I liked so much as Squittig Point; the new Newport, I call it--
+eh? the new Newport. So fashionable already, and only been going, as
+one might say, three or four years! Such charming people here! Oh, by-
+the-way, whom do you think I ran across just now? You wouldn't know
+him, though--been abroad since before you were born, I should think.
+Most charming man I ever met, and awfully wealthy. Ran across him in
+Europe--Paris, I think it was--stop! or was it Vienna? Well, never
+mind. Drayton, that's his name; ever hear of him? Ambrose Drayton. Made
+a great fortune in the tea-trade; or was it in the mines? I've
+forgotten. Well, no matter. Great traveler, too--Africa and the Corea,
+and all that sort of thing; and fought under Garibaldi, they say; and
+he had the charge of some diplomatic affair at Pekin once. The
+quietest, most gentlemanly fellow you ever saw. Oh, you must meet him.
+He's come back to stay, and will probably spend the summer here. I'll
+get him and introduce him. Oh, he'll be charmed--we all shall."
+
+"What sort of a looking person is he?" Miss Leithe inquired.
+
+"Oh, charming--just right! Trifle above medium height; rather lighter
+weight than I am, but graceful; grayish hair, heavy mustache, blue
+eyes; style of a retired English colonel, rather. You know what I mean
+--trifle reticent, but charming manners. Stop! there he goes now--see
+him? Just stopping to light a cigar--in a line with the light-house.
+Now he's thrown away the match, and walking on again. That's Ambrose
+Drayton. Introduce him on the sands this afternoon. How is your good
+aunt to-day? So sorry not to have seen her! Well, I must be off;
+awfully busy to-day. Good-by, my dear Miss Mary; see you this
+afternoon. Good-by. Oh, make my compliments to your good aunt, won't
+you? Thanks. So charmed! _Au revoir_."
+
+"Has that fool gone?" demanded a voice from within.
+
+"Yes, Auntie," the young lady answered.
+
+"Then come in to your dinner," the voice rejoined, accompanied by the
+sound of a chair being drawn up to a table and sat down upon. Mary
+Leithe, after casting a glance after the retreating figure of Mr.
+Haymaker and another toward the light-house, passed slowly through the
+wire-net doors and disappeared.
+
+Mr. Drayton had perforce engaged his accommodations at the hotel, all
+the cottages being either private property or rented, and was likewise
+constrained, therefore, to eat his dinner in public. But Mr. Drayton
+was not a hater of his species, nor a fearer of it; and though he had
+not acquired precisely our American habits and customs, he was disposed
+to be as little strange to them as possible. Accordingly, when the gong
+sounded, he entered the large dining-room with great intrepidity. The
+arrangement of tables was not continuous, but many small tables,
+capable of accommodating from two to six, were dotted about everywhere.
+Mr. Drayton established himself at the smallest of them, situated in a
+part of the room whence he had a view not only of the room itself, but
+of the blue sea and yellow rocks on the other side. This preliminary
+feat of generalship accomplished, he took a folded dollar bill from his
+pocket and silently held it up in the air, the result being the speedy
+capture of a waiter and the introduction of dinner.
+
+But at this juncture Mr. Haymaker came pitching into the room, as his
+nature was, and pinned himself to a standstill, as it were, with his
+eyeglass, in the central aisle of tables. Drayton at once gave himself
+up for lost, and therefore received Mr. Haymaker with kindness and
+serenity when, a minute or two later, he came plunging up, in his usual
+ecstasy of sputtering amiability, and seated himself in the chair at
+the other side of the table with an air as if everything were charming
+in the most charming of all possible worlds, and he himself the most
+charming person in it.
+
+"My dear Drayton, though," exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, in the interval
+between the soup and the bluefish, "there is some one here you must
+know--most charming girl you ever knew in your life, and has set her
+heart on knowing you. We were talking about you this morning--Miss Mary
+Leithe. Lovely name, too; pity ever to change it--he! he! he! Why, you
+must have seen her about here; has an old aunt, widow of Jim Corwin,
+who's dead and gone these five years. You recognize her, of course?"
+
+"Not as you describe her," said Mr. Drayton, helping his friend to
+fish.
+
+"Oh, the handsomest girl about here; tallish, wavy brown hair, soft
+brown eyes, the loveliest-shaped eyes in the world, my dear fellow;
+complexion like a Titian, figure slender yet, but promising. A way of
+giving you her hand that makes you wish she would take your heart,"
+pursued Mr. Haymaker, impetuously filling his mouth with bluefish,
+during the disposal of which he lost the thread of his harangue.
+Drayton, however, seemed disposed to recover it for him.
+
+"Is this young lady from New England?" he inquired.
+
+"New-Yorker by birth," responded the ever-vivacious Haymaker; "father a
+Southern man; mother a Bostonian. Father died eight or nine years after
+marriage; mother survived him six years; girl left in care of old Mrs.
+Corwin--good old creature, but vague--very vague. Don't fancy the
+marriage was a very fortunate one; a little friction, more or less.
+Leithe was rather a wild, unreliable sort of man; Mrs. Leithe a woman
+not easily influenced--immensely charming, though, and all that, but a
+trifle narrow and set. Well, you know, it was this way: Leithe was an
+immensely wealthy man when she married him; lost his money, struggled
+along, good deal of friction; Mrs. Leithe probably felt she had made a
+mistake, and that sort of thing. But Miss Mary here, very different
+style, looks like her mother, but softer; more in her, too. Very little
+money, poor girl, but charming. Oh! you must know her."
+
+"What did you say her mother's maiden name was?"
+
+"Maiden name? Let me see. Why--oh, no--oh, yes--Cleveland, Mary
+Cleveland."
+
+"Mary Cleveland, of Boston; married Hamilton Leithe, about nineteen
+years ago. I used to know the lady. And this is her daughter! And Mary
+Cleveland is dead!--Help yourself, Haymaker. I never take more than one
+course at this hour of the day."
+
+"But you must let me introduce you, you know," mumbled Haymaker,
+through his succotash.
+
+"I hardly know," said Drayton, rubbing his mustache. "Pardon me if I
+leave you," he added, looking at his watch. "It is later than I
+thought."
+
+Nothing more was seen of Drayton for the rest of that day. But the next
+morning, as Mary Leithe sat on the Bowlder Rock, with a book on her
+lap, and her eyes on the bathers, and her thoughts elsewhere, she heard
+a light, leisurely tread behind her, and a gentlemanly, effective
+figure made its appearance, carrying a malacca walking-stick, and a
+small telescope in a leather case slung over the shoulder.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Leithe," said this personage, in a quiet and
+pleasant voice. "I knew your mother before you were born, and I can not
+feel like a stranger toward her daughter. My name is Ambrose Drayton.
+You look something like your mother, I think."
+
+"I think I remember mamma's having spoken of you," said Mary Leithe,
+looking up a little shyly, but with a smile that was the most winning
+of her many winning manifestations. Her upper lip, short, but somewhat
+fuller than the lower one, was always alive with delicate movements;
+the corners of her mouth were blunt, the teeth small; and the smile was
+such as Psyche's might have been when Cupid waked her with a kiss.
+
+"It was here I first met your mother," continued Drayton, taking his
+place beside her. "We often sat together on this very rock. I was a
+young fellow then, scarcely older than you, and very full of romance
+and enthusiasm. Your mother--". He paused a moment, looking at his
+companion with a grave smile in his eyes. "If I had been as dear to her
+as she was to me," he went on, "you would have been our daughter."
+
+Mary looked out upon the bathers, and upon the azure bay, and into her
+own virgin heart. "Are you married, too?" she asked at length.
+
+"I was cut out for an old bachelor, and I have been true to my
+destiny," was his reply. "Besides, I've lived abroad till a month or
+two ago, and good Americans don't marry foreign wives."
+
+"I should like to go abroad," said Mary Leithe.
+
+"It is the privilege of Americans," said Drayton. "Other people are
+born abroad, and never know the delight of real travel. But, after all,
+America is best. The life of the world culminates here. We are the prow
+of the vessel; there may be more comfort amidships, but we are the
+first to touch the unknown seas. And the foremost men of all nations
+are foremost only in so far as they are at heart American; that is to
+say, America is, at present, even more an idea and a principle than it
+is a country. The nation has perhaps not yet risen to the height of its
+opportunities. So you have never crossed the Atlantic?"
+
+"No; my father never wanted to go; and after he died, mamma could not."
+
+"Well, our American Emerson says, you know, that, as the good of travel
+respects only the mind, we need not depend for it on railways and
+steamboats."
+
+"It seems to me, if we never moved ourselves, our minds would never
+really move either."
+
+"Where would you most care to go?"
+
+"To Rome, and Jerusalem, and Egypt, and London."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They seem like parts of my mind that I shall never know unless I visit
+them."
+
+"Is there no part of the world that answers to your heart?"
+
+"Oh, the beautiful parts everywhere, I suppose."
+
+"I can well believe it," said Drayton, but with so much simplicity and
+straightforwardness that Mary Leithe's cheeks scarcely changed color.
+"And there is beauty enough here," he added, after a pause.
+
+"Yes; I have always liked this place," said she, "though the cottages
+seem a pity."
+
+"You knew the old farm-house, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I used to play in the farm-yard when I was a little girl.
+After my father died, Mamma used to come here every year. And my aunt
+has a cottage here now. You haven't met my aunt, Mr. Drayton?"
+
+"I wished to know you first. But now I want to know her, and to become
+one of the family. There is no one left, I find, who belongs to me.
+What would you think of me for a bachelor uncle?"
+
+"I would like it very much," said Mary, with a smile.
+
+"Then let us begin," returned Drayton.
+
+Several days passed away very pleasantly. Never was there a bachelor
+uncle so charming, as Haymaker would have said, as Drayton. The kind of
+life in the midst of which he found himself was altogether novel and
+delightful to him. In some aspects it was like enjoying for the first
+time a part of his existence which he should have enjoyed in youth, but
+had missed; and in many ways he doubtless enjoyed it more now than he
+would have done then, for he brought it to a maturity of experience
+which had taught him the inestimable value of simple things; a quiet
+nobility of character and clearness of knowledge that enabled him to
+perceive and follow the right course in small things as in great; a
+serene yet cordial temperament that rendered him the cheerfulest and
+most trustworthy of companions; a generous and masculine disposition,
+as able to direct as to comply; and years which could sympathize
+impartially with youth and age, and supply something which each lacked.
+He, meanwhile, sometimes seemed to himself to be walking in a dream.
+The region in which he was living, changed, yet so familiar, the
+thought of being once more, after so many years of homeless wandering,
+in his own land and among his own countrymen, and the companionship of
+Mary Leithe, like, yet so unlike, the Mary Cleveland he had known and
+loved, possessing in reality all the tenderness and lovely virginal
+sweetness that he had imagined in the other, with a warmth of heart
+that rejuvenated his own, and a depth and freshness of mind answering
+to the wisdom that he had drawn from experience, and rendering her,
+though in her different and feminine sphere, his equal--all these
+things made Drayton feel as if he would either awake and find them the
+phantasmagoria of a beautiful dream, or as if the past time were the
+dream, and this the reality. Certainly, in this ardent, penetrating
+light of the present, the past looked vaporous and dim, like a range of
+mountains scaled long ago and vanishing on the horizon.
+
+And was this all? Doubtless it was, at first. It was natural that
+Drayton should regard with peculiar tenderness the daughter of the
+woman he had loved. She was an orphan, and poor; he was alone in the
+world, with no one dependent upon him, and with wealth which could find
+no better use than to afford this girl the opportunities and the
+enjoyments which she else must lack. His anticipations in returning to
+America had been somewhat cold and vague. It was his native land; but
+abstract patriotism is, after all, rather chilly diet for a human being
+to feed his heart upon. The unexpected apparition of Mary Leithe had
+provided just that vividness and particularity that were wanting.
+Insensibly Drayton bestowed upon her all the essence of the love of
+country which he had cherished untainted throughout his long exile. It
+was so much easier and simpler a thing to know and appreciate her than
+to do as much for the United States and their fifty million
+inhabitants, national, political, and social, that it is no wonder if
+Drayton, as a modest and sane gentleman, preferred to make the former
+the symbol of the latter--of all, at least, that was good and lovable
+therein. At the same time, so clear-headed a man could scarcely have
+failed to be aware that his affection for Mary Leithe was not actually
+dependent upon the fact of her being an emblem. Upon what, then, was it
+dependent? Upon her being the daughter of Mary Cleveland? It was true
+that he had loved Mary Cleveland; but she had deliberately jilted him
+to marry a wealthier man, and was therefore connected with and
+responsible for the most painful as well as the most pleasurable
+episode of his early life. Mary Leithe bore some personal resemblance
+to her mother; but had she been as like her in character and
+disposition as she was in figure and feature, would Drayton, knowing
+what he knew, have felt drawn toward her? A man does not remain for
+twenty years under the influence of an unreasonable and mistaken
+passion. Drayton certainly had not, although his disappointment had
+kept him a bachelor all his life, and altered the whole course of his
+existence. But when we have once embarked upon a certain career, we
+continue in it long after the motive which started us has been
+forgotten. No; Drayton's regard for Mary Leithe must stand on its own
+basis, independent of all other considerations.
+
+What, in the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely
+avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was
+the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The
+idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner.
+That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior
+rendered the suggestion yet more irrational. She was lustrous with
+lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay,
+he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the
+love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His
+attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive.
+His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of
+her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely and without fear.
+
+And yet, once again, was he not the dupe of himself and of a
+convention? Was his the mood in which an uncle studies his niece, or
+even a father his daughter? How often during the day was she absent
+from his thoughts, or from his dreams at night? What else gave him so
+much happiness as to please her, and what would he not do to give her
+pleasure? Why was he dissatisfied and aimless when not in her presence?
+Why so full-orbed and complete when she was near? He was eighteen years
+the elder, but there was in her a fullness of nature, a balanced
+development, which went far toward annulling the discrepancy. Moreover,
+though she was young, he was not old, and surely he had the knowledge,
+the resources, and the will to make her life happy. There would be, he
+fancied, a certain poetical justice in such an issue. It would
+illustrate the slow, seemingly severe, but really tender wisdom of
+Providence. Out of the very ashes of his dead hopes would arise this
+gracious flower of promise. She would afford him scope for the
+employment of all those riches, moral and material, which life had
+brought him; she would be his reward for having lived honorably and
+purely for purity's and honor's sake. But why multiply reasons? There
+was justification enough; and true love knows nothing of justification.
+He loved her, then; and now, did she love him? This was the real
+problem--the mystery of a maiden's heart, which all Solomon's wisdom
+and Bacon's logic fail to elucidate. Drayton did what he could. Once he
+came to her with the news that he must be absent from an excursion
+which they had planned, and he saw genuine disappointment darken her
+sweet face, and her slender figure seem to droop. This was well as far
+as it went, but beyond that it proved nothing. Another time he gave her
+a curious little shell which he had picked up while they were rambling
+together along the beach, and some time afterward he accidently noticed
+that she was wearing it by a ribbon round her neck. This seemed better.
+Again, on a night when there was a social gathering at the hotel, he
+entered the room and sat apart at one of the windows, and as long as he
+remained there he felt that her gaze was upon him, and twice or thrice
+when he raised his eyes they were met by hers, and she smiled; and
+afterward, when he was speaking near her, he noticed that she
+disregarded what her companion of the moment was saying to her, and
+listened only to him. Was not all this encouragement? Nevertheless,
+whenever, presuming upon this, he hazarded less ambiguous
+demonstrations, she seemed to shrink back and appear strange and
+troubled. This behavior perplexed him; he doubted the evidence that had
+given him hope; feared that he was a fool; that she divined his love,
+and pitied him, and would have him, if at all, only out of pity.
+Thereupon he took himself sternly to task, and resolved to give her up.
+
+It was a transparent July afternoon, with white and gray clouds
+drifting across a clear blue sky, and a southwesterly breeze roughening
+the dark waves and showing their white shoulders. Mary Leithe and
+Drayton came slowly along the rocks, he assisting her to climb or
+descend the more rugged places, and occasionally pausing with her to
+watch the white canvas of a yacht shiver in the breeze as she went
+about, or to question whether yonder flash amid the waves, where the
+gulls were hovering and dipping, were a bluefish breaking water. At
+length they reached a little nook in the seaward face, which, by often
+resorting to it, they had in a manner made their own. It was a small
+shelf in the rock, spacious enough for two to sit in at ease, with a
+back to lean against, and at one side a bit of level ledge which served
+as a stand or table. Before them was the sea, which, at high-water
+mark, rose to within three yards of their feet; while from the
+shoreward side they were concealed by the ascending wall of sandstone.
+Drayton had brought a cushion with him, which he arranged in Mary's
+seat; and when they had established themselves, he took a volume of
+Emerson's poems from his pocket and laid it on the rock beside him.
+
+"Are you comfortable?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I wish it would be always like this--the weather, and the sun,
+and the time--so that we might stay here forever."
+
+"Forever is the least useful word in human language," observed Drayton.
+"In the perspective of time, a few hours, or days, or years, seem alike
+inconsiderable."
+
+"But it is not the same to our hearts, which live forever," she
+returned.
+
+"The life of the heart is love," said Drayton.
+
+"And that lasts forever," said Mary Leithe.
+
+"True love lasts, but the object changes," was his reply.
+
+"It seems to change sometimes," said she.
+
+"But I think it is only our perception that is misled. We think we have
+found what we love; but afterward, perhaps, we find it was not in the
+person we supposed, but in some other. Then we love it in him; not
+because our heart has changed, but just because it has not."
+
+"Has that been your experience?" Drayton asked, with a smile.
+
+"Oh, I was speaking generally," she said, looking down.
+
+"It may be the truth; but if so, it is a perilous thing to be loved."
+
+"Perilous?"
+
+"Why, yes. How can the lover be sure that he really is what his
+mistress takes him for? After all, a man has and is nothing in himself.
+His life, his love, his goodness, such as they are, flow into him from
+his Creator, in such measure as he is capable or desirous of receiving
+them. And he may receive more at one time than at another. How shall he
+know when he may lose the talismanic virtue that won her love--even
+supposing he ever possessed it?"
+
+"I don't know how to argue," said Mary Leithe; "I can only feel when a
+thing is true or not--or when I think it is--and say what I feel."
+
+"Well, I am wise enough to trust the truth of your feeling before any
+argument."
+
+This assertion somewhat disconcerted Mary Leithe, who never liked to be
+confronted with her own shadow, so to speak. However, she seemed
+resolved on this occasion to give fuller utterance than usual to what
+was in her mind; so, after a pause, she continued, "It is not only how
+much we are capable of receiving from God, but the peculiar way in
+which each one of us shows what is in him, that makes the difference in
+people. It is not the talisman so much as the manner of using it that
+wins a girl's love. And she may think one manner good until she comes
+to know that another is better."
+
+"And, later, that another is better still?"
+
+"You trust my feeling less than you thought, you see," said Mary,
+blushing, and with a tremor of her lips.
+
+"Perhaps I am afraid of trusting it too much," Drayton replied, fixing
+his eyes upon her. Then he went on, with a changed tone and manner:
+"This metaphysical discussion of ours reminds me of one of Emerson's
+poems, whose book, by-the-by, I brought with me. Have you ever read
+them?"
+
+"Very few of them," said Mary; "I don't seem to belong to them."
+
+"Not many people can eat them raw, I imagine," rejoined Drayton,
+laughing. "They must be masticated by the mind before they can nourish
+the heart, and some of them--However, the one I am thinking of is very
+beautiful, take it how you will. It is called, 'Give all to Love.' Do
+you know it!"
+
+Mary shook her head.
+
+"Then listen to it," said Drayton, and he read the poem to her. "What
+do you think of it?" he asked when he had ended.
+
+"It is very short," said Mary, "and it is certainly beautiful; but I
+don't understand some parts of it, and I don't think I like some other
+parts."
+
+"It is a true poem," returned Drayton; "it has a body and a soul; the
+body is beautiful, but the soul is more beautiful still; and where the
+body seems incomplete, the soul is most nearly perfect. Be loyal, it
+says, to the highest good you know; follow it through all difficulties
+and dangers; make it the core of your heart and the life of your soul;
+and yet, be free of it! For the hour may always be at hand when that
+good that you have lived for and lived in must be given up. And then--
+what says the poet?
+
+  "'Though thou loved her as thyself,
+  As a self of purer clay,
+  Though her parting dims the day,
+  Stealing grace from all alive,
+  Heartily know,
+  When half-gods go,
+  The gods arrive.'"
+
+There was something ominous in Drayton's tone, quiet and pleasant
+though it sounded to the ear, and Mary could not speak; she knew that
+he would speak again, and that his words would bring the issue finally
+before her.
+
+He shut the book and put it in his pocket. For some time he remained
+silent, gazing eastward across the waves, which came from afar to break
+against the rock at their feet. A small white pyramidal object stood up
+against the horizon verge, and upon this Drayton's attention appeared
+to be concentrated.
+
+"If you should ever decide to come," he said at length, "and want the
+services of a courier who knows the ground well, I shall be at your
+disposal."
+
+"Come where?" she said, falteringly.
+
+"Eastward. To Europe."
+
+"You will go with me?"
+
+"Hardly that. But I shall be there to receive you."
+
+"You are going back?"
+
+"In a month, or thereabouts."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Drayton! Why?"
+
+"Well, for several reasons. My coming here was an experiment. It might
+have succeeded, but it was made too late. I am too old for this young
+country. I love it, but I can be of no service to it. On the contrary,
+so far as I was anything, I should be in the way. It does not need me,
+and I have been an exile so long as to have lost my right to inflict
+myself upon it. Yet I am glad to have been here; the little time that I
+have been here has recompensed me for all the sorrows of my life, and I
+shall never forget an hour of it as long as I live."
+
+"Are you quite sure that your country does not want you--need you?"
+
+"I should not like my assurance to be made more sure."
+
+"How can you know? Who has told you? Whom have you asked?"
+
+"There are some questions which it is not wise to put; questions whose
+answers may seem ungracious to give, and are sad to hear."
+
+"But the answer might not seem so. And how can it be given until you
+ask it?"
+
+Drayton turned and looked at her. His face was losing its resolute
+composure, and there was a glow in his eyes and in his cheeks that
+called up an answering warmth in her own.
+
+"Do you know where my country is?" he demanded, almost sternly.
+
+"It is where you are loved and wanted most, is it not?" she said,
+breathlessly.
+
+"Do not deceive yourself--nor me!" exclaimed Drayton, putting out his
+hand toward her, and half rising from the rock. "There is only one
+thing more to say."
+
+A sea-gull flew close by them, and swept on, and in a moment was far
+away, and lost to sight. So in our lives does happiness come so near us
+as almost to brush our cheeks with its wings, and then pass on, and
+become as unattainable as the stars. As Mary Leithe was about to speak,
+a shadow cast from above fell across her face and figure. She seemed to
+feel a sort of chill from it, warm though the day was; and without
+moving her eyes from Drayton's face to see whence the shadow came, her
+expression underwent a subtle and sudden change, losing the fervor of a
+moment before, and becoming relaxed and dismayed. But after a moment
+Drayton looked up, and immediately rose to his feet, exclaiming, "Frank
+Redmond!"
+
+On the rock just above them stood a young man, dark of complexion, with
+eager eyes, and a figure athletic and strong. As Drayton spoke his
+name, his countenance assumed an expression half-way between pleased
+surprise and jealous suspicion. Meanwhile Mary Leithe had covered her
+face with her hands.
+
+"I'm sure I'd no idea you were here, Mr. Drayton," said the young man.
+"I was looking for Mary Leithe. Is that she?"
+
+Mary uncovered her face, and rose to her feet languidly. She did not as
+yet look toward Redmond, but she said in a low voice, "How do you do,
+Frank? You--came so suddenly!"
+
+"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
+back a little and lifting his head.
+
+Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
+the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
+stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
+Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
+have got through your first greetings."
+
+"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
+
+"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
+was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
+and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
+Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
+I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
+married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
+lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
+any one who in my opinion--How do you do, Frank? You--came so
+suddenly!"
+
+"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
+back a little and lifting his head.
+
+Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
+the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
+stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
+Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
+have got through your first greetings."
+
+"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
+
+"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
+was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
+and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
+Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
+I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
+married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
+lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
+any one who in my opinion would suit her better. Come down here and
+shake hands, Frank, and then I'll leave you to make your excuses to
+Miss Leithe. And the next time you come back to her after a year's
+absence, don't frighten her heart into her mouth by springing out on
+her like a jack-in-the-box. Send a bunch of flowers or a signet-ring to
+tell her you are coming, or you may get a cooler reception than you'd
+like!"
+
+"Ah! Ambrose Drayton," he sighed to himself as he clambered down the
+rocks alone, and sauntered along the shore, "there is no fool like an
+old fool. Where were your eyes that you couldn't have seen what was the
+matter? Her heart was fighting against itself all the time, poor child!
+And you, selfish brute, bringing to bear on her all your antiquated
+charms and fascinations--Heaven save the mark!--and bullying her into
+the belief that you could make her happy! Thank God, Ambrose Drayton,
+that your awakening did not come too late. A minute more would have
+made her and you miserable for life--and Redmond too, confound him! And
+yet they might have told me; one of them might have told me, surely.
+Even at my age it is hard to remember one's own insignificance. And I
+did love her! God knows how I loved her! I hope he loves her as much;
+but how can he help it! And she--she won't remember long! An old fellow
+who made believe he was her uncle, and made rather a fool of himself;
+went back to Europe, and never been heard of since. Ah, me!"
+
+"Where did you get acquainted with Mr. Drayton, Frank?"
+
+"At Dresden. It was during the vacation at Freiberg last winter, and I
+had come over to Dresden to have a good time. We stayed at the same
+hotel. We played a game of billiards together, and he chatted with me
+about America, and asked me about my mining studies at Freiberg; and I
+thought him about the best fellow I'd ever met. But I didn't know then
+--I hadn't any conception what a splendid fellow he really was. If ever
+I hear anybody talking of their ideal of a gentleman, I shall ask them
+if they ever met Ambrose Drayton."
+
+"What did he do?"
+
+"Well, the story isn't much to my credit; if it hadn't been for him,
+you might never have heard of me again; and it will serve me right to
+confess the whole thing to you. It's about a--woman."
+
+"What sort of a woman?"
+
+"She called herself a countess; but there's no telling what she really
+was. I only know she got me into a fearful scrape, and if it hadn't
+been for Mr. Drayton--"
+
+"Did you do anything wrong, Frank?"
+
+"No; upon my honor as a gentleman! If I had, Mary, I wouldn't be here
+now."
+
+Mary looked at him with a sad face. "Of course I believe you, Frank,"
+she said. "But I think I would rather not hear any more about it."
+
+"Well, I'll only tell you what Mr. Drayton did. I told him all about it
+--how it began, and how it went on, and all; and how I was engaged to a
+girl in America--I didn't tell him your name; and I wasn't sure, then,
+whether you'd ever marry me, after all; because, you know, you had been
+awfully angry with me before I went away, because I wanted to study in
+Europe instead of staying at home. But, you see, I've got my diploma,
+and that'll give me a better start than I ever should have had if I'd
+only studied here. However--what was I saying? Oh! so he said he would
+find out about the countess, and talk to her himself. And how he
+managed I don't know; and he gave me a tremendous hauling over the
+coals for having been such an idiot; but it seems that instead of being
+a poor injured, deceived creature, with a broken heart, and all that
+sort of thing, she was a regular adventuress--an old hand at it, and
+had got lots of money out of other fellows for fear she would make a
+row. But Mr. Drayton had an interview with her. I was there, and I
+never shall forget it if I live to a hundred. You never saw anybody so
+quiet, so courteous, so resolute, and so immitigably stern as he was.
+And yet he seemed to be stern only against the wrong she was trying to
+do, and to be feeling kindness and compassion for her all the time. She
+tried everything she knew, but it wasn't a bit of use, and at last she
+broke down and cried, and carried on like a child. Then Mr. Drayton
+took her out of the room, and I don't know what happened, but I've
+always suspected that he sent her off with money enough in her pocket
+to become an honest woman with if she chose to; but he never would
+admit it to me. He came back to me after a while, and told me to have
+nothing more to do with any woman, good or bad except the woman I
+meant to marry, and I promised him I wouldn't, and I kept my promise.
+But we have him to thank for our happiness, Mary."
+
+Tears came silently into Mary's eyes; she said nothing, but sat with
+her hands clasped around one knee, gazing seaward.
+
+"You don't seem very happy, though," pursued Redmond, after a pause;
+"and you acted so oddly when I first found you and Mr. Drayton
+together--I almost thought--well, I didn't know what to think. You do
+love me, don't you?"
+
+For a few moments Mary Leithe sat quite motionless, save for a slight
+tremor of the nerves that pervaded her whole body; and then, all at
+once, she melted into sobs. Redmond could not imagine what was the
+matter with her; but he put his arms round her, and after a little
+hesitation or resistance, the girl hid her face upon his shoulder, and
+wept for the secret that she would never tell.
+
+But Mary Leithe's nature was not a stubborn one, and easily adapted
+itself to the influences with which she was most closely in contact.
+When she and Redmond presented themselves at Aunt Corwin's cottage that
+evening her tears were dried, and only a tender dimness of the eyes and
+a droop of her sweet mouth betrayed that she had shed any.
+
+"Mr. Drayton wanted to be remembered to you, Mary," observed Aunt
+Corwin, shortly before going to bed. She had been floating colored sea-
+weeds on paper all the time since supper, and had scarcely spoken a
+dozen words.
+
+"Has he gone?" Mary asked.
+
+"Who? Oh, yes; he had a telegram, I believe. His trunks were to follow
+him. He said he would write. I liked that man. He was not like Mr.
+Haymaker; he was a gentleman. He took an interest in my collections,
+and gave me several nice specimens. Your mother was a fool not to have
+married him. I wish you could have married him yourself. But it was not
+to be expected that he would care for a child like you, even if your
+head were not turned by that Frank Redmond. How soon shall you let him
+marry you?"
+
+"Whenever he likes," answered Mary Leithe, turning away.
+
+As a matter of fact, they were married the following winter. A week
+before the ceremony a letter arrived for Mary from New York, addressed
+in a legal hand. It contained an intimation that, in accordance with
+the instructions of their client, Mr. Ambrose Drayton, the undersigned
+had placed to her account the sum of fifty thousand dollars as a
+preliminary bequest, it being the intention of Mr. Drayton to make her
+his heir. There was an inclosure from Drayton himself, which Mary,
+after a moment's hesitation, placed in her lover's hand, and bade him
+break the seal.
+
+It contained only a few lines, wishing happiness to the bride and
+bridegroom, and hoping they all might meet in Europe, should the
+wedding trip extend so far. "And as for you, my dear niece," continued
+the writer, "whenever you think of me remember that little poem of
+Emerson's that we read on the rocks the last time I saw you. The longer
+I live the more of truth do I find in it, especially in the last verse:
+
+  "'Heartily know,
+  When half-gods go,
+  The gods arrive!'"
+
+"What does that mean?" demanded Redmond, looking up from the letter.
+
+"We can not know except by experience," answered Mary Leithe.
+
+
+
+
+"SET NOT THY FOOT ON GRAVES."
+
+
+_New York_, _April 29th_.--Last night I came upon this
+passage in my old author: "Friend, take it sadly home to thee--Age and
+Youthe are strangers still. Youthe, being ignorant of the wisdome of
+Age, which is Experience, but wise with its own wisdome, which is of
+the unshackeled Soule, or Intuition, is great in Enterprise, but slack
+in Achievement. Holding itself equal to all attempts and conditions,
+and to be heir, not of its own spanne of yeares and compasse of
+Faculties only, but of all time and all Human Nature--such, I saye,
+being its illusion (if, indeede, it be illusion, and not in some sorte
+a Truth), it still underrateth the value of Opportunitie, and, in the
+vain beleefe that the City of its Expectation is paved with Golde and
+walled with Precious Stones, letteth slip betwixt its fingers those
+diamondes and treasures which ironical Fate offereth it.... But see
+nowe what the case is when this youthe becometh in yeares. For nowe he
+can nowise understand what defecte of Judgmente (or effecte of
+insanitie rather) did leade him so to despise and, as it were, reject
+those Giftes and golden chaunces which come but once to mortal men.
+Experience (that saturnine Pedagogue) hath taught him what manner of
+man he is, and that, farre from enjoying that Deceptive Seeminge or
+mirage of Freedome which would persuade him that he may run hither and
+thither as the whim prompteth over the face of the Earthe--yea, take
+the wings of the morninge and winnowe his aerie way to the Pleiadies--
+he must e'en plod heavilie and with paine along that single and narrowe
+Path whereto the limitations of his personal nature and profession
+confine him--happy if he arrive with muche diligence and faire credit
+at the ende thereof, and falle not ignobly by the way. Neverthelesse--
+for so great is the infatuation of man, who, although he acquireth all
+other knowledge, yet arriveth not at the knowledge of Himself--if to
+the Sage of Experience he proffered once again the gauds and prizes of
+youthe, which he hath ever since regretted and longed for--what doeth
+he in his wisdome? Verilie, so longe as the matter remaineth _in
+nubibis_, as the Latins say, or in the Region of the Imagination, as
+oure speeche hath it, he will beleeve, yea, take his oathe, that he
+still is master of all those capacities and energies whiche, in his
+youthe, would have prompted and enabled him to profit by this desired
+occurrence. Yet shall it appeare (if the thinge be brought still
+further to the teste, and, from an Imagination or Dreame, become an
+actual Realitie), that he will shrinke from and decline that which he
+did erste so ardently sigh for and covet. And the reason of this is as
+follows, to-wit: That Habit or Custome hath brought him more to love
+and affect those very ways and conditions of life, yea, those
+inconveniences and deficiencies which he useth to deplore and abhorre,
+than that Crown of Golde or Jewel of Happiness whose withholding he
+hath all his life lamented. Hence we may learne, that what is past, is
+dead, and that though thoughts be free, nature is ever captive, and
+loveth her chaine."
+
+This is too lugubrious and cynical not to have some truth in it; but I
+am unwilling to believe that more than half of it is true. The author
+himself was evidently an old man, and therefore a prejudiced judge; and
+he did not make allowances for the range and variety of temperament.
+Age is not a matter of years, and scarcely of experience. The only
+really old persons are the selfish ones. The man whose thoughts,
+actions, and affections center upon himself, soon acquires a fixity and
+crustiness which (if to be old is to be "strange to youth") is old as
+nothing else is. But the man who makes the welfare and happiness of
+others his happiness, is as young at threescore as he was at twenty,
+and perhaps even younger, for he has had no time to grow old.
+
+_April 30th_.--The Courtneys are in town! This is, I believe, her
+first visit to America since he married her. At all events, I have not
+seen or heard of her in all these seven years. I wonder ... I was going
+to write, I wonder whether she remembers me. Of course she remembers
+me, in a sort of way. I am tied up somewhere among her bundle of
+recollections, and occasionally, in an idle moment, her eye falls upon
+me, and moves her, perhaps, to smile or to sigh. For my own part, in
+thinking over our old days, I find I forget her less than I had
+supposed. Probably she has been more or less consciously in my mind
+throughout. In the same way, one has always latent within him the
+knowledge that he must die; but it does not follow that he is
+continually musing on the thought of death. As with death, so with this
+old love of mine. What a difference, if we had married! She was a very
+lovely girl--at least, I thought so then. Very likely I should not
+think her so now. My taste and knowledge have developed; a different
+order of things interests me. It may not be an altogether pleasant
+thing to confess; but, knowing myself as I now do, I have often thanked
+my stars that I am a bachelor.
+
+Doubtless she is even more changed than I am. A woman changes more than
+a man in seven years, and a married woman especially must change a
+great deal from twenty-two to twenty-nine. Think of Ethel Leigh being
+in her thirtieth year! and the mother of four or five children,
+perhaps. Well, for the matter of that, think of the romantic and
+ambitious young Claude Campbell being an old bachelor of forty! I have
+married Art instead of Ethel, and she, instead of being Mrs. Campbell,
+is Mrs. Courtney.
+
+It was a surprising thing--her marrying him so suddenly. But,
+appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I have never quite made up
+my mind that Ethel was really fickle. She did it out of pique, or
+pride, or impulse, or whatever it is that sways women in such cases.
+She was angry, or indignant--how like fire and ice at once she was when
+she was angry!--and she was resolved to show me that she could do
+without me. She would not listen to my explanations; and I was always
+awkward and stiff about making explanations. Besides, it was not an
+easy matter to explain, especially to a girl like her. With a married
+woman or a widow it would have been a simple thing enough. But Ethel
+Leigh, the minister's daughter--innocent, ignorant, passionate--she would
+tolerate nothing short of a public disavowal and discontinuance of my
+relations with Mrs. Murray, and that, of course, I could not consent to,
+though heaven knows (and so must Ethel, by this time) that Mrs. Murray was
+nothing to me save as she was the wife of my friend, during whose
+enforced absence I was bound to look after her, to some extent. It was
+not my fault that poor Mrs. Murray was a fool. But such are the
+trumpery seeds from which tragedies grow. Not that ours was a tragedy,
+exactly: Ethel married her English admirer, and I became a somewhat
+distinguished artist, that is all. I wonder whether she has been happy!
+Likely enough; she was born to be wealthy; Englishmen make good
+husbands sometimes, and her London life must have been a brilliant
+one.... I have been looking at my old photograph of her--the one she
+gave me the morning after we were engaged. Tall, slender, dark, with
+level brows, and the bearing of a Diana. She certainly was handsome,
+and I shall not run the risk of spoiling this fine memory by calling on
+her. Even if she have not deteriorated, she can scarcely have improved.
+Nay, even were she the same now as then, I should not find her so,
+because of the change in myself. Why should I blink the truth?
+Experience, culture, and the sober second thought of middle age have
+carried me far beyond the point where I could any longer be in sympathy
+with this crude, thin-skinned, impulsive girl. And then--four or five
+children! Decidedly, I will give her a wide berth. And Courtney
+himself, with his big beard, small brain, and obtrusive laugh! I shall
+step across to California for a few months.
+
+_May 1st_.--Called this morning on Ethel Leigh--Mrs. Deighton
+Courtney, that is to say. She is not so much changed, but she has
+certainly improved. When I say she has not changed much, I refer to her
+physical appearance. Her features are scarcely altered; her figure is a
+little fuller and more compact; in her bearing there is a certain quiet
+composure and self-possession--the air of a woman who has seen the
+world, has received admiration, and is familiar with the graceful
+little arts of social intercourse. In short, she has acquired a high
+external polish; and that is precisely what she most needed. Evidently,
+too, there is an increased mental refinement corresponding to the
+outward manner. She has mellowed, sweetened--whether deepened or not I
+should hesitate to affirm. But I am quite sure that I find her more
+charming to talk with, more supple in intercourse, more fascinating, in
+a word, than formerly. We chatted discursively and rather volubly for
+more than an hour; yet we did not touch on anything very serious or
+profound. They are staying at the Brevoort House. Courtney himself, by-
+the-by, is still in Boston (they landed there), where business will
+detain him a few days. Ethel goes on a house-hunting expedition to-
+morrow, and I am going with her; for New York has altered out of her
+recollection during these seven years. They are to remain here three
+years, perhaps longer. Courtney is to establish and oversee an American
+branch of his English business.
+
+They have only one child--a pretty little thing: Susie and I became
+great friends.
+
+Mrs. Courtney opened the door of the private sitting-room in which I
+was awaiting her, and came in--beautifully! She has learned how to do
+that since I knew her. My own long residence in Paris has made me more
+critical than I used to be in such matters; but I do not remember
+having met any woman in society with manners more nearly perfect than
+Mrs. Courtney's. Ethel Leigh used to be, upon occasion, painfully
+abrupt and disconcerting; and her movements and attitudes, though there
+was abundant native grace in them, were often careless and
+unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment,
+without sound qualities of mind and heart to back them, are of trifling
+value; but the two kinds of attraction are by no means incompatible
+with each other. Mrs. Courtney smiles often. Ethel Leigh used to smile
+rarely, although, when the smile did come, it was irresistibly winning;
+there was in it exquisite significance and tenderness. It is a
+beautiful smile still, but that charm of rarity (if it be a charm) is
+lacking. It is a conventional smile more than a spontaneous or a happy
+one; indeed, it led me to surmise that she had perhaps not been very
+happy since we last met, and had learned to use this smile as a sort of
+veil. Not that I suppose for a moment that Courtney has ill-treated
+her. I never could see anything in the man beyond a superficial
+comeliness, a talent for business, and an affable temper; but ho was
+not in any sense a bad fellow. Besides, he was over head and ears in
+love with her; and Ethel would be sure to have the upper hand of a
+nature like his. No, her unhappiness, if she be unhappy, would be due
+to no such cause, she and her husband are no doubt on good terms with
+each other. But--suppose she has discovered that he fell short of what
+she demanded in a husband; that she overmatched him; that, in order to
+make their life smooth, she must descend to him? I imagine it may be
+something of that kind. Poor Mrs. Courtney!
+
+She addressed me as "Mr. Campbell," and I dare say she was right. Women
+best know how to meet these situations. To have called me "Claude"
+would have placed us in a false position, by ignoring the changes that
+have taken place. It is wise to respect these barriers; they are
+conventional, but, rightly considered, they are more of an assistance
+than of an obstacle to freedom of intercourse. I asked her how she
+liked England. She smiled and said, "It was my business to like
+England; still, I am glad to see America once more."
+
+"You will entertain a great deal, I presume--that sort of thing?"
+
+"We shall hope to make friends with people--and to meet old friends.
+It is such a pleasant surprise to find you here. I heard you were
+settled in Paris."
+
+"So I was, for several years; the Parisians said nice things about my
+pictures. But one may weary even of Paris. I returned here two years
+ago, and am now as much of a fixture in New York as if I'd never left
+it."
+
+"But not a permanent fixture. Shall we never see you in London?"
+
+"My present probabilities lie rather in the direction of California. I
+want to make some studies of the scenery and the atmosphere. Besides, I
+am getting too old to think of another European residence."
+
+"No one gets old after thirty--especially no bachelor!" she answered,
+with a smile. "But if you were ever to feel old, the society of London
+would rejuvenate you."
+
+"It has certainly done you no harm. But you have the happiness to be
+married."
+
+She looked at me pleasantly and said, "Yes, I make a good
+Englishwoman." That sounded like an evasion, but the expression of her
+face was not evasive. In the old days she would probably have flushed
+up and said something cutting.
+
+"You must see my little girl," she said, after a while.
+
+The child was called, and presently came in. She resembles her mother,
+and has a vivacity scarcely characteristic of English children. I am
+not constitutionally a worshiper of children, but I liked Susie. She
+put her arms round her mother's arm, and gazed at me with wide-eyed
+scrutiny."
+
+"This is Mr. Campbell," said mamma.
+
+"My name is Susan Courtney," said the little thing. "We are going to
+stay in New York three years. Hot here--this is only an hotel--we are
+going to have a house. How do you do? This is my dolly."
+
+I saluted dolly, and thereby inspired its parent with confidence: she
+put her hand in mine, and gave me her smooth little cheek to kiss. "You
+are not like papa," she then observed.
+
+I smiled conciliatingly, being uncertain whether it were prudent to
+follow this lead; but Mrs. Courtney asked, "In what way different,
+dear?"
+
+"Papa has a beard," replied Susie.
+
+The incident rather struck me; it seemed to indicate that Mrs. Courtney
+was under no apprehension that the child would say anything
+embarrassing about the father. Having learned so much, I ventured
+farther.
+
+"Do you love papa or mamma best?" I inquired.
+
+"I am with mamma most," she answered, after meditation, "but when papa
+comes, I like him."
+
+This was non-committal. She continued, "Papa is coming here day after
+to-morrow. To-morrow, mamma and I are going to find a house."
+
+"Your husband leaves all that to you?" I said, turning to Mrs.
+Courtney.
+
+"Mr. Courtney never knows or cares what sort of a place he lives in. It
+took me some little time to get used to that. I wanted everything to be
+just in a certain way. They used to laugh at me, and say I was more
+English than he."
+
+"Now that you are both here, you must both be American."
+
+"He doesn't enjoy America much. Of course, it is very different from
+London. An Englishman can not be expected to care for American ways and
+American quickness, and--"
+
+"American people?" I put in, laughingly.
+
+"Don't undress dolly here," she said to Susie. "It isn't time yet to
+put her to bed, and she might catch cold."
+
+Was this another evasion? The serene face betrayed nothing, but she
+had left unanswered the question that aimed at discovering how she and
+her husband stood toward each other. After all, however, no answer
+could have told me more than her no answer did--supposing it to have
+been intentional. I soon afterward took my leave, after having arranged
+to call to-morrow and accompany her and Susie on their house-hunting
+expedition. Upon the whole, I don't think I am sorry to have renewed my
+acquaintance with her. She is more delightful--as an acquaintance--than
+when I knew her formerly. Should I have fallen in love with her had I
+met her for the first time as she is now? Yes, and no! In the old days
+there was something about her that commanded me--that fascinated my
+youthful imagination. Perhaps it was only the freshness, the ignorance,
+the timidity of young maidenhood--that mystery of possibilities of a
+nature that has not yet met the world and received its impress for good
+or evil. It is this which captivates in youth; and this, of course,
+Mrs. Courtney has lost. But every quality that might captivate mature
+manhood is hers, and, were I likely to think of marriage now, and were
+she marriageable, she is the type of woman I would choose. Yet I do not
+quite relish the perception that my present feminine ideal (whether it
+be lower or higher) is not the former one. But,--frankly, would I marry
+her if I could? I hardly know: I have got out of the habit of regarding
+marriage as among my possibilities; many avenues of happiness that once
+were open to me are now closed against me. Put it, that I have lost a
+faculty--that I am now able to enjoy only in imagination a phase of
+existence that, formerly, I could have enjoyed in fact. This bit of
+self-analysis may be erroneous; but I would not like to run the risk of
+proving it so! Am I not well enough off as I am? My health is fair, my
+mind active, my reputation secure, my finances prosperous. The things
+that I can dream must surely be better than anything that could happen.
+I can picture, for example, a state of matrimonial felicity which no
+marriage of mine could realize. Besides, I can, whenever I choose, see
+Mrs. Courtney herself, talk with her, and enjoy her as a reasonable and
+congenial friend, apart from the danger and disappointment that might
+result from a closer connection. I think I have chosen the wiser part,
+or, rather, the wiser part has been thrust upon me. That I shall never
+be wildly happy is, at least, security that I shall never be profoundly
+miserable. I shall simply be comfortable. Is this sour grapes? Am I, if not
+counting, then discounting my eggs before they are hatched? To such
+questions a practical--a materialized--answer would be the only
+conclusive one. Were Mrs. Courtney ready to drop into my mouth, I
+should either open my mouth, or else I should shut it, and either act
+would be conclusive. But, so far from being ready to drop into my mouth,
+she is immovably and (to all appearances) contentedly fixed where she
+is. I suppose I am insinuating that appearances are deceptive; that she
+may be unhappy with her husband, and desire to leave him. Well, there
+is no technical evidence in support of such an hypothesis; but, again, in
+a matter of this kind, it is not so much the technical as the indirect
+evidence that tells--the cadences of the voice, the breathing, the
+silences, the atmosphere. There is no denying that I did somehow
+acquire a vague impression that Courtney is not so large a figure in his
+wife's eyes as he might be. I may have been biased by my previous
+conception of his character, or I may have misinterpreted the impalpable,
+indescribable signs that I remarked in her. But, once more, how do I
+know that her not caring for him would postulate her caring for me? Why
+should she care for either of us? Our old romance is to her as the memory
+of something read in a book, and it is powerless to make her heart beat
+one throb the faster. Were Courtney to die to-morrow, would his widow
+expect me to marry her? Not she! She would settle down here quietly,
+educate her daughter, and think better of her departed husband with
+every year that passed, and less of repeating the experiment that made
+her his! I may be prone to romantic and elaborate speculations, but I am
+not exactly a fool. I do not delude myself with the idea that Mrs. Courtney
+is, at this moment, following my example by recording her impressions of
+me at her own writing-desk, and asking herself whether--if such and
+such a thing were to happen--such another would be apt to follow.
+No; she has put Susie to bed, and is by this time asleep herself, after
+having read through the "Post," or "Bazar," or the last new novel, as
+her predilection may be. It is after midnight; since she has not followed
+my example, I will follow hers; it is much the more sensible of the two.
+
+_May 2d_.--What a woman she is! and, in a different sense, what a
+man I am! How little does a man know or suspect himself until he is
+brought to the proof! How serenely and securely I philosophized and
+laid down the law yesterday! and to-day, how strange to contrast the
+event with my prognostication of it! And yet, again, how little has
+happened that might not be told in such a way as to appear nothing! It
+was the latent meaning, the spirit, the touch of look and tone. Her
+husband may have reached New York by this time; they may be together at
+this moment; he will find no perceptible change in her--perceptible to
+him! He will be told that I have been her escort during the day, and
+that I was polite and serviceable, and that a house has been selected.
+What more is there to tell? Nothing--that he could hear or understand!
+and yet--everything! He will say, "Yes, I recollect Campbell; nice
+fellow; have him to dine with us one of these days." But I shall never
+sit at their table; I shall never see her again; I can not! I shall
+start for California next week. Meanwhile I will write down the history
+of one day, for it is well to have these things set visibly before one
+--to grasp the nettle, as it were. Nothing is so formidable as it
+appears when we shrink from defining it to ourselves.
+
+I drove to the hotel in my brougham at eleven o'clock, as we had
+previously arranged. She was ready and waiting for me, and little Susie
+was with her. Ethel was charmingly dressed, and there was a soft look
+in her eyes as she turned them on me--a look that seemed to say, "I
+remember the past; it is pleasant to see you, so pleasant as to be
+sad!" Susie came to me as if I were an old friend, and I lifted the
+child from the floor and kissed her twice.
+
+"Why did you give me two kisses?" she demanded, as I put her down.
+"Papa always gives me only one kiss."
+
+"Papa has mamma as well as you to kiss; but I have no one; I am an old
+bachelor."
+
+"When you have known mamma longer, will you kiss her too?"
+
+"Old bachelors kiss nobody but little girls," I replied, laughing.
+
+"We went down to the brougham, and after we were seated and on our
+way," Ethel said, "Already I feel so much at home in New York, it almost
+startles me. I fancied I should have forgotten old associations--should
+have grown out of sympathy with them; but I seem only to have learned
+to appreciate them more. Our memory for some things is better than we
+would believe."
+
+"There are two memories in us," I remarked; "the memory of the heart
+and the memory of the head. The former never is lost, though the other
+may be. But I had not supposed that you cared very deeply for the
+American period of your life."
+
+"England is very agreeable," she said, rather hastily. She turned her
+head and looked out of the window; but after a pause she added, as if
+to herself, "but I am an American!"
+
+"There is, no doubt, a deep-rooted and substantial repose in English
+life such as is scarcely to be found elsewhere," I said; "but, for all
+that, I have often thought that the best part of domestic happiness
+could exist nowhere but here. Here a man may marry the woman he loves,
+and their affection for each other will be made stronger by the
+hardships they may have to pass through. After all, when we come to the
+end of our lives, it is not the business we have done, nor the social
+distinction we have enjoyed--it is the love we have given and received
+that we are glad of."
+
+"Mamma," inquired Susie, "does Mr. Campbell love you?"
+
+We both of us looked at the child and laughed a little. "Mr. Campbell
+is an old friend," said Ethel. After a few moments she blushed. She
+held in her hand some house-agents' orders to view houses, and these
+she now began to examine. "Is this Madison Avenue place likely to be a
+good one?" she asked me.
+
+"It is conveniently situated and comfortable; but I should think it
+might be too large for a family of three. Perhaps, though, you don't
+like a close fit?"
+
+"I don't like empty rooms, though I prefer such rooms as there are to
+be large. But it doesn't make much difference. Mr. Courtney moves about
+a good deal, and he is as happy in a hotel as anywhere. These American
+hotels are luxurious and splendid, but they are not home-like to me."
+
+"I remember you used to dislike being among a crowd of people you
+didn't know."
+
+"Yes, and I haven't yet learned to be sociable in that way. A friend is
+more company for me than a score of acquaintances. Dear me! I'm afraid
+New York will spoil me--for England!"
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Courtney may be cured of England by New York."
+
+She smiled and said, "Perhaps! He accommodates himself to things more
+easily than I do, but I think one needs to be born in America to know
+how to love it."
+
+Under the veil of discussing America and things in general, we were
+talking of ourselves, awakening reminiscences of the past, and
+discovering, with a pleasure we did not venture to acknowledge, that--
+allowing for the events and the years that had come between--we were as
+much in accord as when we were young lovers. Yes, as much, and perhaps
+even more. For surely, if one grows in the right way, the sphere of
+knowledge and sympathy must enlarge, and thereby the various points of
+contact between two minds and hearts must be multiplied. Ethel and I,
+during these seven years, had traveled our round of daily life on
+different sides of the earth; but the miles of sea and land which had
+physically separated us had been powerless to estrange our spirits.
+Nothing is more strange, in this mysterious complexity of impressions
+and events that we call human existence, than the fact that two beings,
+entirely cut off from all natural means of association and communion,
+may yet, unknown to each other, be breathing the same spiritual air and
+learning the same moral and intellectual lessons. Like two seeds of the
+same species, planted, the one in American soil, the other in English,
+Ethel and I had selected, by some instinct of the soul, the same
+elements from our different surroundings; so that now, when we met once
+more, we found a close and harmonious resemblance between the leaves
+and blossoms of our experience. What can be more touching and
+delightful than such a discovery? Or what more sad than to know that it
+came too late for us to profit by it?
+
+Oh, Ethel, how easy it is to take the little step that separates light
+from darkness, happiness from misery! Remembering that we live but
+once, and that the worthy enjoyments of life are so limited in number
+and so hard to get, it seems unjust and monstrous that one little hour
+of jealousy or misunderstanding should wreck the fair prospects of
+months and years. Why is mischief so much readier to our hand than
+good?
+
+We got out at a house near the Park. I assisted Ethel to alight, and,
+as her hand rested on mine, the thought crossed my mind--How sweet if
+this were our own home that we are about to enter!--and I glanced at
+her face to see whether a like thought had visited her. She maintained
+a subdued demeanor, with an expression about the mouth and eyes of a
+peculiar timid gentleness, and, as it were, a sort of mental leaning
+upon me for support and protection. She felt, it may be, a little fear
+of herself, at finding herself--in more senses than one--so near to me;
+and, woman-like, she depended upon me to protect her against the very
+peril of which I was the occasion. No higher or more delicate
+compliment can be paid by a woman to a man; and I resolved that I would
+do what in me lay to deserve it. But such resolutions are the hardest
+in the world to keep, because the circumstance or the impulse of the
+moment is continually in wait to betray you. Ethel was more fascinating
+and lovely in this mood than in any other I had hitherto seen her in;
+and the misgiving, from which I could not free myself, that the man
+whom Fate had made her husband did not appreciate or properly cherish
+the gift bestowed upon him, made me warm toward her more than ever. I
+could scarcely have believed that such blood could flow in the sober
+veins of my middle age; but love knows nothing of time or age!
+
+"I do not like this house," Susie declared, when we had been admitted
+by the care-taker. "It has no carpets, nor chairs, nor pictures; and
+the floor is dirty; and the walls are not pretty!"
+
+"I suppose one can have these houses decorated and furnished at short
+notice?" Ethel asked me.
+
+"It would not take long. There are several firms that make it their
+specialty."
+
+"I have always wanted to live in a house where the colors and forms
+were to my taste. I don't know whether you remember that you used to
+think I had some taste in such matters. Mr. Courtney, of course,
+doesn't care much about art, and he didn't encourage me to carry out my
+ideas. A business man can not be an artist, you know."
+
+"You yourself would have become an artist if--" I began; but I was
+approaching dangerous ground, and I stopped. "This dining-room might be
+done in Indian red," I remarked--"the woodwork, that is to say. The
+walls would be a warm salmon color, which contrasts well with the cold
+blue of the china, which it is the fashion to have about nowadays. As
+for the furniture, antique dark oak is as safe as anything, don't you
+think so?"
+
+"I should like all that," said she, moving a little nearer me, and
+letting her eyes wander about the room with a pleased expression, until
+at length they met my own. "If you could only design our decoration for
+us, I'm sure it would be perfect; at least, I should be satisfied.
+Well, and how should we... how ought the drawing-room to be done?"
+
+"There is a shade of yellow that is very agreeable for drawing-rooms,
+and it goes very well with the dull peacock-blue which is in vogue now.
+Then you could get one of those bloomy Morris friezes. There is some
+very graceful Chippendale to be picked up in various places. And no
+such good furniture is made nowadays. But I am advising you too much
+from the artist's point of view."
+
+"Oh, I can get other sort of advice when I want it." She looked at me
+with a smile; our glances met more often now than at first. "But it
+seems to me," she went on, "that the way the house is built docs not
+suit the way we want to decorate it. Let us look at a smaller one. I
+should think ten rooms would be quite enough. And it would be nice to
+have a corner house, would it not?"
+
+"If the question were only of our agreement, there would probably not
+be much difficulty," I said, in a tone which I tried to make merely
+courteous, but which may have revealed something more than courtesy
+beneath it.
+
+In coming down-stairs she gathered her dress in her right hand and put
+her left in my arm; and then, in a flash, the picture came before me of
+the last time we had gone arm-in-arm together down-stairs. It was at
+her father's house, and she was speaking to me of that unlucky Mrs.
+Murray; we had our quarrel that evening in the drawing-room, and it was
+never made up. From then till now, what a gulf! and yet those years
+would have been but a bridge to pass over, save for the one barrier
+that was insurmountable between us.
+
+"What has become of that Mrs. Murray whom you used to know?" she asked,
+as we reached the foot of the stairs. She relinquished my arm as she
+spoke, and faced me.
+
+I felt the blood come to my face. "Mrs. Murray was in my thoughts at
+the same moment--and perhaps by the same train of associations." I
+answered, "I don't know where she is now; I lost sight of her years
+ago--soon after you were married, in fact. Why do you ask?"
+
+"You had not forgotten her, then?"
+
+"I had every reason to forget her, except the one reason for which I
+have remembered her--and you know what that is! Have you mistrusted me
+all this time?"
+
+"Oh, no--no! I don't think I really mistrusted you at all; and long ago
+I admitted to myself that you had acted unselfishly and honorably. But
+I was angry at the time; you know, sometimes a girl will be angry, even
+when there is no good reason for it. I have long wished for an
+opportunity to tell you this, for my own sake, you know, as well as for
+yours."
+
+"I hardly know whether I am most glad or sorry to hear this," I said,
+as we moved toward the door. "If you had only been able to say it, or
+to think it, before ... there would have been a great difference!"
+
+"The worst of mistakes is, they are so seldom set right at the time, or
+in the way they ought to be. Come, Susie, we are going away now. Susie,
+do you most like to be American or English?"
+
+"English," replied Susie, without hesitation.
+
+Her mother turned to me and said in a low tone:
+
+"I love her, whichever she is."
+
+I understood what she meant. Susie was the symbol of that inevitable
+element in our lives which seems to evolve itself without reference to
+our desires or efforts; but which, nevertheless, when we have
+recognized that it is inevitable, we learn (if we are wise) to accept
+and even to love. Save for the estrangement between Ethel and myself,
+Susie would never have existed; yet there she was, a beautiful child,
+who had as good a right to be as either of us; and her mother loved
+her, and, as it were, bade me love her also. I took the little maiden
+by the hand and said, "You are right, Susie; the Americans are the
+children of the English, and can not expect to be so wise and
+comfortable as they. But you must remember that the Americans have a
+future before them, and we are not enemies any more. Will you be
+friends with me, and let me call you my little girl?"
+
+"I shouldn't mind being your little girl, if I could still have the
+same mamma," was Susie's reply. "Papa is away a great deal, and you
+could be papa, you know, until he came back."
+
+I made some laughing answer; but, in fact, Susie's frank analysis of
+the situation poignantly kindled an imagination which stood in no need
+of stimulus. Ah, if this were the Golden Age, when love never went
+astray, how happy we might be! But it is not the Golden Age--far from
+it! Meanwhile, I think I can assert, with a clear conscience, that no
+dishonorable purpose possessed me. I loved Ethel too profoundly to wish
+to do her wrong. Yet I may have wished--I did wish--that a kindly
+Providence might have seen fit to remove the disabilities that
+controlled us. If a wish could have removed Courtney painlessly to
+another world, I think I should have wished it. There was something
+exquisitely touching in Ethel's appearance and manner. She is as pure
+as any woman that ever lived; but she is a woman! and I felt that, for
+this day, I had a man's power over her. Occasionally I was conscious
+that her eyes were resting on my face; when I addressed her, her aspect
+softened and brightened; she fell into little moods of preoccupation
+from which she would emerge with a sigh; in many ways she betrayed,
+without knowing it, the secret that neither of us would mention. I do
+not mean to imply that she expected me to mention it. A pure woman does
+not realize the dangers of the world; and that very fact is itself her
+strongest security against them. But, had I spoken, she would have
+responded. It was a temptation which I could hardly have believed I
+could have resisted as I did; but such a woman calls out all that is
+best and noblest in a man; and, at the time, I was better than I am!
+
+When we were in the brougham again, I said, "If you will allow me, I
+will drive you to a house I have seen, which belongs to a man with whom
+I am slightly acquainted. He is on the point of leaving it, but his
+furniture is still in it, and, as he is himself an artist and a man of
+taste, it will be worth your while to look at it. He is rather deaf,
+but that is all the better; we can express our opinions without
+disturbing him. Perhaps you might arrange to take house and furniture
+as they stand."
+
+"Whatever you advise, I shall like to do," Ethel answered.
+
+We presently arrived at the house, which was situated in the upper part
+of the town, a little to the west of Fifth Avenue. It was a comely
+gabled edifice of red brick, with square bay-windows and a roomy porch.
+The occupant, Maler, a German, happened to be at home; and on my
+sending in my card, we were admitted at once, and he came to greet us
+in the hall in his usual hearty, headlong fashion.
+
+"My good Campbell," he exclaimed, in his blundering English, "very
+delighted to see you. Ah, dis will be madame, and de little maid! So
+you are married since some time--I have not know it! Your servant,
+Madame Campbell. I know--all de artists know--your husband: we wish we
+could paint how he can--but it is impossible! Ha, ha, ha! not so! Now,
+I am very pleased you shall see dis house. May I beg de honor of
+accompany you? First you shall see de studio; dat I call de stomach of
+de house, eh? because it is most important of all de places, and make
+de rest of de places live. See, I make dat window be put in--you find
+no better light in New York. Den you see, here we have de alcove, where
+Madame Campbell shall sit and make her sewing, while de husband do his
+work on de easel. How you like dat portiere? I design him myself--oh,
+yes, I do all here; you keep them if you like; I go to Germany, perhaps
+not come back after some years, so I leave dem, not so? Now I show you
+my little chamber of the piano. See, I make an arched ceiling--groined
+arch, eh?--and I gild him; so I get pretty light and pretty sound,
+not? Ah! madame, I have not de happiness to be married, but I make my
+house so, dat if I get me a wife, she find all ready; but no wife come,
+so I give him over to Herr Campbell and you. Now we mount up-stairs to
+de bed-rooms, eh?"
+
+In this way he went over the entire house with us. His loud, jolly
+voice, his resounding laugh, his bustling manner, his heedless, boy-
+like self-confidence, and his deafness, made it impossible to get in a
+word of explanation, and, after a few efforts, I gave up the attempt.
+
+"Let him suppose what he likes," I said aside to Ethel, "it can make no
+difference; he is going away, and you will never see him again. After
+all these years, it can do no great harm for us to play at being Mr.
+and Mrs. Campbell for an hour!"
+
+"It is a very beautiful house," she said, tacitly accepting what I had
+proposed. "It is such a house as I have always dreamed of living in. I
+shall not care to look at any others. Will you tell him that we--that I
+will take it just as it stands. You have made this a very pleasant day
+for me--a very happy day," she added, in a lower tone. "Every room here
+will be associated with you. You will come here often and see me, will
+you not? Perhaps, after all, you might use the studio to paint my--or
+Susie's portrait in."
+
+"I shall inflict myself upon you very often, I have no doubt," was all
+I ventured to reply. I could not tell her, at that moment, that we must
+never see each other again. She--after the manner of women--probably
+supposes that a man's strength is limitless; that he may do with
+himself and make of himself what he chooses; and she supposes that I
+could visit her and converse with her day after day, and yet keep my
+thoughts and my acts within such bounds as would enable me to take
+Courtney honestly by the hand. But I know too well my own weakness, and
+I shall leave her while yet I have power to do so. Tomorrow--or soon--I
+will write to her one last letter, telling her why I go.
+
+Sudden and strange indeed has been this passionate episode in a life
+which, methought, had done with passion. It has lasted hardly so many
+hours as I have lived years; and yet, were I to live on into the next
+century, it would never cease to influence me in all I think and do. I
+can not solve to my satisfaction this problem--why two lives should be
+wasted as ours have been. Courtney could have been happy with another
+wife, or with no wife at all, perhaps; but, for Ethel and me, there
+could be no happiness save in each other. But were she free to-day, the
+separation that has already existed--long though it has been--would
+only serve to render our future union more blissful and complete. We
+have learned, by sad experience, the value of a love like ours, and we
+should know how to give it its fullest and widest expression. But oh!
+what a blank and chilly road lies before us now!
+
+I drove her back to her hotel; we hardly spoke all the way; my heart
+was too full, and hers also, I think; though she did not know, as I
+did, that it was our last interview. It must be our last! Heaven help
+me to keep that resolution!
+
+Susie was not at all impressed by the pathos of the situation; she
+babbled all the time, and thus, at all events, afforded us an excuse
+for our silence. At parting, one incident occurred that may as well be
+recorded. I had shaken hands with Ethel, speaking a few words of
+farewell, and allowing her to infer that we might meet again on the
+morrow; then I turned to Susie, and gave her the kiss which I would
+have given the world to have had the right to press on her mother's
+lips. Ethel saw, and, I think, understood. She stooped quickly down,
+and laid her mouth where mine had been. Through the innocent medium of
+the child, our hearts met; and then I saw her no more.
+
+_May 3d_.--Of course, it may not be true, probably it is not;
+mistakes are so easily made in the first moments of such horror and
+confusion; the dead come to life, and the living die. Or, at the worst,
+he may be only wounded or disabled. At all events, I decline to
+believe, save upon certain evidence, that the poor fellow has actually
+been killed. Were it to turn out so, I should feel almost like a
+murderer; for was not I writing, in this very journal, and perhaps at
+the very moment the accident occurred, that if my wish could send him
+to another world, I would not spare him?
+
+_Later_.--I have read all the accounts in the newspapers this
+morning, and all agree in putting Courtney's name among the killed.
+There can be no doubt about it any longer; he is dead. When the
+collision occurred, the car in which he vas riding was thrown across
+the track, and the other train crashed through it. Judging by the
+condition of the body when discovered, death must have been nearly
+instantaneous. Poor Courtney! My conscience is not at ease. Of course,
+I am not really responsible; that is only imagination. But I begin to
+suspect that my imagination has been playing me more than one trick
+lately.
+
+And now, with this new state of affairs so suddenly and terribly
+brought about, what is to be done? I am as yet scarcely in a condition
+to reflect calmly; but a voice within me seems to say that something
+else besides my conscience has been awakened by Courtney's death. Can
+it be that imagination, dallying with what it took for impossibilities,
+could so far mislead a man? Well, I shall start at once for the scene
+of the disaster, and relieve the poor fellow's widow of whatever pain I
+can. Ethel Courtney a widow! Ah, Ethel! Death sheds a ghastly light
+upon the idle vagaries of the human heart.
+
+_May 15th_.--_Denver_, _Colorado_.--Magnificent weather
+and scenery; very different from my own mental scenery and mood at this
+moment. I am sorely out of spirits; and no wonder, after the reckless
+and insane emotion of the first days of this month. One pays for such
+indulgences at my age.
+
+I have been re-reading the foregoing pages of this journal. Was I a
+fool or a coward, or was I merely intoxicated for eight-and-forty
+hours? At all events, Courtney's tragic end sobered me, and put what I
+had been doing in a true light. I am glad my insanity was not permitted
+to proceed farther than it did; but I have quite enough to reproach
+myself with as it is. So far as I hare been able to explain the matter
+to myself, my prime error lay in attributing, in a world subject to
+constant change, too much permanence to a given state of affairs. The
+fact that Ethel was the wife of another man seemed to me so fixed and
+unalterable that I allowed my imagination to play with the picture of
+what might happen if that unalterable fact were altered. Secure in this
+fallacy, I worked myself up to the pitch of believing that I was
+actually and passionately in love with a woman whose inaccessibility
+was, after all, her most winning attraction. Moreover, by writing down,
+in this journal, the events and words of the hours we spent together, I
+confirmed myself in my false persuasion, and probably imported into the
+record of what we said and did an amount of color and hidden
+significance that never, as I am now convinced, belonged to it in
+reality. Deluded by the notion that I was playing with a fancy, I was
+suddenly aroused to find myself imbrued in facts. The whole episode has
+profoundly humiliated me, and degraded me in my own esteem.
+
+But I am not at the bottom of the mystery yet. Was I not in love with
+Ethel? Surely I was, if love be anything. Then why did I not ask her to
+marry me? Would she have refused me? No. That last look she gave me
+from under her black veil, when I told her I was going away.... Ah, no,
+she would not have refused me. Then why did I hesitate? Was not such a
+marriage precisely what I have always longed for? During all these
+seven years have I not been bewailing my bachelorhood, and wishing for
+an Ethel to cheer my solitary fireside with her gracious presence, to
+be interested in my work and hopes, to interest me in her wifely and
+maternal ways and aspirations? And when at last all these things were
+offered me, why did I shrink back and reject them?
+
+Honestly, I can not explain it. Perhaps, if I had never loved her
+before, I might have loved her this time enough to unite my fate with
+hers. Or, perhaps--for I may as well speak plainly, since I am speaking
+to myself--perhaps, by force of habit, I had grown to love, better than
+love itself, those self-same forlorn conditions and dreary solitudes
+which I was continually lamenting and praying to be delivered from.
+What a dismal solution of the problem this would be were it the true
+one! It amounts to saying that I prefer an empty room, a silent hearth,
+an old pair of slippers, and a dressing-gown to the love and
+companionship of a refined and beautiful woman!--that I love even my
+own discomforts more than the comfort she would give me! It sounds
+absurd, scandalous, impossible; and yet, if it be not the literal
+truth, I know not what the truth is. It is amazing that an educated and
+intelligent man can live to be forty years old and still have come to
+no better an understanding of himself than I had. Verily, as my old
+author said, thought is free, but nature is captive, and loveth her
+chain. Yes, my old author was right.
+
+
+
+
+MY FRIEND PATON.
+
+
+Mathew Morriss, my father, was a cotton merchant in Liverpool twenty-
+five years ago--a steady, laborious, clear-headed man, very
+affectionate and genial in his private intercourse. He was wealthy, and
+we lived in a sumptuous house in the upper part of the city. This was
+when I was about ten years old. My father was twice married; I was the
+child of the first wife, who died when I was very young; my stepmother
+came five years later. She was the elder of two sisters, both beautiful
+women. The sister often came to visit us. I remember I liked her better
+than I liked my stepmother; in fact, I regarded her with that sort of
+romantic attachment that often is developed in lads of my age. She had
+golden brown hair and a remarkably sweet voice, and she sang and played
+in a manner that transported me with delight; for I was already devoted
+to music. She was of a gentle yet impulsive temperament, easily moved
+to smiles and tears; she seemed to me the perfection of womankind, and
+I made no secret of my determination to marry her when I grew up. She
+used to caress me, and look at me in a dreamy way, and tell me I was
+the nicest and handsomest boy in the world. "And as soon as you are a
+year older than I am, John," she would say, "you shall marry me, if you
+like."
+
+Another frequent visitor at our house at this time was not nearly so
+much a favorite of mine. This was a German, Adolf Koerner by name, who
+had been a clerk in my father's concern for a number of years, and had
+just been admitted junior partner. My father placed every confidence in
+him, and often declared that he had the best idea of business he had
+ever met with. This may very likely have been the fact; but to me he
+appeared simply a tall, grave, taciturn man, of cold manners, speaking
+with a slight German accent, which I disliked. I suppose he was about
+thirty-seven years of age, but I always thought of him as older than my
+father, who was fifty. Another and more valid reason for my disliking
+Koerner was that he was in the habit of paying a great deal of attention
+to my ladylove, Miss Juliet Tretherne. I used to upbraid Juliet about
+encouraging his advances, and I expressed my opinion of him in the
+plainest language, at which she would smile in a preoccupied wav, and
+would sometimes draw me to her and kiss me on the forehead. Once she
+said, "Mr. Koerner is a very noble gentleman; you must not dislike him."
+This had the effect of making me hate him all the more.
+
+One day I noticed an unusual commotion in the house, and Juliet came
+down-stairs attired in a lovely white dress, with a long veil, and
+fragrant flowers in her hair. She got into a carriage with my father
+and stepmother, and drove away. I did not understand what it meant, and
+no one told me. After they were gone I went into the drawing-room, and,
+greatly to my surprise, saw there a long table covered with a white
+cloth and laid out with a profusion of good things to eat and drink in
+sparkling dishes and decanters. In the middle of the table was a great
+cake covered with white frosting; the butler was arranging some flowers
+round it.
+
+"What is that cake for, Curtis?" I asked.
+
+"For the bride, to be sure," said Curtis, without looking up.
+
+"The bride! who is she?" I demanded in astonishment.
+
+"Your aunt Juliet, to be sure!" said Curtis, composedly, stepping back
+and contemplating his floral arrangement with his head on one side.
+
+I asked no more, but betook myself with all speed to my room, locked
+the door, flung myself on the bed, and cried to heartbreaking with
+grief, indignation, and mortification. After a very long time some one
+tried the door, and a voice--the voice of Juliet--called to me. I made
+no answer. She began to plead with me; I resisted as long as I could,
+but finally my affection got the better of my resentment, and I arose
+and opened the door, hiding my tear-stained face behind my arm. Juliet
+caught me in her arms and kissed me; tears were running down her own
+cheeks. How lovely she looked! My heart melted, and I was just on the
+point of forgiving her when the voice of Koerner became audible from
+below, calling out "Mrs. Koerner!" I tore myself away from her, and
+cried passionately, "You don't love me! you love him! go to him!" She
+looked at me for a moment with a pained expression; then she put her
+hand in the pocket of her dress and drew out something done up in white
+paper. "See what I have brought you, you unkind boy," said she. "What
+is it?" I demanded. "A piece of my wedding-cake," she replied. "Give it
+me!" said I. She put it in my hand; I ran forward to the head of the
+stairs, which Koerner was just ascending, dashed the cake in his face,
+and then rushed back to my own room, whence neither threats nor coaxing
+availed to draw me forth for the rest of the day.
+
+I never saw Juliet again. She and her husband departed on their
+wedding-trip that afternoon; it was to take them as far as Germany, for
+Koerner said that he wished to visit his father and mother, who were
+still alive, before settling down permanently in Liverpool. Whether
+they really did so was never discovered. But, about a fortnight later,
+a dreadful fact came to light. Koerner--the grave and reticent Koerner,
+whom everybody trusted and thought so highly of--was a thief, and he
+had gone off with more than half my father's property in his pocket.
+The blow almost destroyed my father, and my stepmother, too, for that
+matter, for at first it seemed as though Juliet must have been privy to
+the crime. This, however, turned out not to have been the case. Her
+fate must have been all the more terrible on that account; but no news
+of either of them ever came back to us, and my father would never take
+any measures to bring Koerner to justice. It was several months before
+he recovered from the shock sufficiently to take up business again; and
+then the American Civil War came and completed his ruin. He died, a
+poor and broken-down man, a year later. My stepmother, who was really
+an admirable woman, realized whatever property remained to us, took a
+small house, and sent me to an excellent school, where I was educated
+for Cambridge. Meanwhile I had been devoting all possible time to
+music; for I had determined to become a composer, and I was looking
+forward, after taking my degree, to completing my musical education
+abroad; but my mother's health was precarious, and, when the time came,
+she found herself unequal to making the journey, and the change of
+habits and surroundings that it implied. We lived very quietly in
+Liverpool for three or four years; then she died, and, after I had
+settled our affairs, I found myself in possession of a small income and
+alone in the world. Without loss of time I set out for the Continent.
+
+I went to a German city, where the best musical training was to be had,
+and made my arrangements to pass several years there. At the banker's,
+when I went to provide for the regular receipt of my remittances, I met
+a young American, by name Paton Jeffries. He was from New England, and,
+I think, a native of the State of Connecticut; his father, he told me,
+was a distinguished inventor, who had made and lost a considerable
+fortune in devising a means of promoting sleep by electricity. Paton
+was studying to be an architect, which, he said, was the coming
+profession in his country; and it was evident, on a short acquaintance,
+that he was a fellow of unusual talents--one of those men of whom you
+say that, come what may, they are always sure to fall on their feet.
+For my part, I have certainly never met with so active and versatile a
+spirit. He was a year or so older than I, rather tall than short,
+lightly but strongly built, with a keen, smiling, subtle face, a
+finely-developed forehead, light wavy hair, and gray eyes, very
+penetrating and bright. There was a pleasing kind of eagerness and
+volubility in his manner of talking, and a slight imperfection, not
+amounting to a lisp, in his utterance, which imparted a naive charm to
+his speech. He used expressive and rapid gestures with his hands and
+arms, and there was a magnetism, a fascination, about the whole man
+that strongly impressed me. I was at that period much more susceptible
+of impressions, and prone to yield to them, than I am now. Paton's
+rattling vivacity, his knowledge of the world, his entertaining talk
+and stories, his curiosity, enterprise, and audacity, took me by storm;
+he was my opposite in temperament and character, and it seemed to me
+that he had most of the advantages on his side. Nevertheless, he
+professed, and I still believe he felt, a great liking for me, and we
+speedily came to an agreement to seek a lodging together. On the second
+day of our search, we found just what we wanted.
+
+It was an old house, on the outskirts of the town, standing by itself,
+with a small garden behind it. It had formerly been occupied by an
+Austrian baron, and it was probably not less than two hundred years
+old. The baron's family had died out, or been dispersed, and now the
+venerable edifice was let, in the German fashion, in separate floors or
+_etages_, communicating with a central staircase. Some alterations
+rendered necessary by this modification had been made, but
+substantially the house was unchanged. Our apartment comprised four or
+five rooms on the left of the landing and at the top of the house,
+which consisted of three stories. The chief room was the parlor, which
+looked down through a square bow-window on the street. This room was of
+irregular shape, one end being narrower than the other, and nearly
+fitting the space at this end was a kind of projecting shelf or
+mantelpiece (only, of course, there was no fireplace under it, open
+fireplaces being unknown in Germany), upon which rested an old cracked
+looking-glass, made in two compartments, the frame of which, black with
+age and fly-spots, was fastened against the wall. The shelf was
+supported by two pilasters; but the object of the whole structure was a
+mystery; so far as appeared, it served no purpose but to support the
+looking-glass, which might just as well have been suspended from a nail
+in the wall. Paton, I remember, betrayed a great deal of curiosity
+about it; and since the consideration of the problem was more in his
+line of business than in mine, I left it to him. At the opposite end of
+the room stood a tall earthenware stove. The walls were wainscoted five
+feet up from the dark polished floor, and were hung with several smoky
+old paintings, of no great artistic value. The chairs and tables were
+plain, but very heavy and solid, and of a dark hue like the room. The
+window was nearly as wide as it was high, and opened laterally from the
+center on hinges. The other rooms were of the same general appearance,
+but smaller. We both liked the place, and soon made ourselves very
+comfortable in it. I hired a piano, and had it conveyed upstairs to the
+parlor; while Paton disposed his architectural paraphernalia on and in
+the massive writing-table near the window. Our cooking and other
+household duties were done for us by the wife of the _portier_,
+the official corresponding to the French _concierge_, who, in all
+German houses, attends at the common door, and who, in this case, lived
+in a couple of musty little closets opening into the lower hall, and
+eked out his official salary by cobbling shoes. He was an odd,
+grotesque humorist, of most ungainly exterior, black haired and
+bearded, with a squint, a squab nose, and a short but very powerful
+figure. Dirty he was beyond belief, and he was abominably fragrant of
+vile tobacco. For my part, I could not endure this fellow; but Paton,
+who had much more of what he called human nature in him than I had,
+established friendly relations with him at once, and reported that he
+found him very amusing. It was characteristic of Paton that, though he
+knew much less about the German language than I did, he could
+understand and make himself understood in it much better; and, when we
+were in company, it was always he who did the talking.
+
+It would never have occurred to me to wonder, much less to inquire, who
+might be the occupants of the other _etages_; but Paton was more
+enterprising, and before we had been settled three days in our new
+quarters, he had gathered from his friend the portier, and from other
+sources, all the obtainable information on the subject. The information
+was of no particular interest, however, except as regarded the persons
+who dwelt on the floor immediately below us. They were two--an old man
+and a young woman, supposed to be his daughter. They had been living
+here several years--from before the time, indeed, that the portier had
+occupied his present position. In all these years the old man was known
+to have been out of his room only twice. He was certainly an eccentric
+person, and was said to be a miser and extremely wealthy. The portier
+further averred that his property--except such small portion of it as
+was invested and on the income of which he lived--was realized in the
+form of diamonds and other precious stones, which, for greater
+security, he always carried, waking or sleeping, in a small leathern
+bag, fastened round his neck by a fine steel chain. His daughter was
+scarcely less a mystery than he, for, though she went out as often as
+twice or thrice a week, she was always closely veiled, and her figure
+was so disguised by the long cloak she wore that it was impossible to
+say whether she were graceful or deformed, beautiful or ugly. The
+balance of belief, however, was against her being attractive in any
+respect. The name by which the old miser was known was Kragendorf; but,
+as the portier sagaciously remarked, there was no knowing, in such
+cases, whether the name a man bore was his own or somebody's else.
+
+This Kragendorf mystery was another source of apparently inexhaustible
+interest to Paton, who was fertile in suggestions as to how it might be
+explained or penetrated. I believe he and the portier talked it over at
+great length, but, so far as I am aware, without arriving at any
+solution. I took little heed of the matter, being now fully absorbed in
+my studies; and it is to be hoped that Herr Kragendorf was not of a
+nervous temperament, otherwise he must have inveighed profanely against
+the constant piano-practice that went on over his head. I also had a
+violin, on which I flattered myself I could perform with a good deal of
+expression, and by and by, in the long, still evenings--it was
+November, but the temperature was still mild--I got into the habit of
+strolling along the less frequented streets, with my violin under my
+shoulder, drawing from it whatever music my heart desired. Occasionally
+I would pause at some convenient spot, lean against a wall, and give
+myself up to improvisation. At such times a little cluster of auditors
+would gradually collect in front of me, listening for the most part
+silently, or occasionally giving vent to low grunts and interjections
+of approval. One evening, I remember, a young woman joined the group,
+though keeping somewhat in the background; she listened intently, and
+after a time gradually turned her face toward me, unconsciously as it
+were; and the light of a street-lamp at a little distance revealed a
+countenance youthful, pale, sad, and exquisitely beautiful. It
+impressed me as with a vague reminiscence of something I had seen or
+imagined--some pictured face, perhaps, caught in a glance and never to
+be identified. Her eyes finally met mine; I stopped playing. She
+started, gave me an alarmed look, and, gliding swiftly away,
+disappeared. I could not forget this incident; it haunted me strangely
+and persistently. Many a time thereafter I revisited the same spot, and
+drew together other audiences, but the delicate girl with the dark-blue
+eyes and the tender, sensitive mouth, was never again among them.
+
+It was at this epoch, I think, that the inexhaustible Paton made a
+discovery. From my point of view it was not a discovery of any moment;
+but, as usual, he took interest in it enough for both of us. It
+appeared that, in attempting to doctor the crack in the old looking-
+glass, a large piece of the plate had got loose, and come away in his
+hands; and in the space behind he had detected a paper, carefully
+folded and tied up with a piece of faded ribbon. Paton was never in the
+habit of hampering himself with fine-drawn scruples, and he had no
+hesitation in opening the folded paper and spreading it out on the
+table. Judging from the glance I gave it, it seemed to be a confused
+and abstruse mixture of irregular geometrical figures and cramped
+German chirography. But Paton set to work upon it with as much
+concentration as if it had been a recipe for the Philosopher's Stone;
+he reproduced the lines and angles on fresh paper, and labored over the
+writing with a magnifying-glass and a dictionary. At times he would
+mutter indistinctly to himself, lift his eyebrows, nod or shake his
+head, bite his lips, and rub his forehead, and anon fall to work again
+with fresh vigor. At last he leaned back in his chair, thumped his hand
+on the table, and laughed.
+
+"Got it!" he exclaimed. "Say, John, old boy, I've got it! and it's the
+most curious old thing ever you saw in your life!"
+
+"Something in analytical geometry, isn't it?" said I, turning round on
+my piano-stool.
+
+"Analytical pudding's end! It's a plan of a house, my boy, and, what's
+more, of this very house we're in! That's a find, and no mistake! These
+are the descriptions and explanations--these bits of writing. It's a
+perfect labyrinth of Crete! Udolpho was nothing to it!"
+
+"Well, I suppose it isn't of much value except as a curiosity?"
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, John, my boy! Who knows but there's a
+treasure concealed somewhere in this house? or a skeleton in a secret
+chamber! This old paper may make our fortune yet!"
+
+"The treasure wouldn't belong to us if we found it; and, besides, we
+can't make explorations beyond our own premises, and we know what's in
+them already."
+
+"Do we? Did we know what was behind the looking-glass? Did you never
+hear of sliding panels, and private passages, and concealed staircases?
+Where's your imagination, man? But you don't need imagination--here it
+is in black and white!"
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to a part of the plan; but, as I was stooping
+to examine it, he seemed to change his mind.
+
+"No matter," he exclaimed, suddenly folding up the paper and rising
+from his chair. "You're not an architect, and you can't be expected to
+go in for these things. No; there's no practical use in it, of course.
+But secret passages were always a hobby of mine. Well, what are you
+going to do this evening? Come over to the cafe and have a game of
+billiards!"
+
+"No; I shall go to bed early to-night."
+
+"You sleep too much," said Paton. "Everybody does, if my father,
+instead of inventing a way of promoting sleep, had invented a way of
+doing without it, he'd have been the richest man in America to-day.
+However, do as you like. I sha'n't be back till late."
+
+He put on his hat and sallied forth with a cigar in his mouth. Paton
+was of rather a convivial turn; he liked to have a good time, as he
+called it; and, indeed, he seemed to think that the chief end of man
+was to get money enough to have a good time continually, a sort of good
+eternity. His head was strong, and he could stand a great deal of
+liquor; and I have seen him sip and savor a glass of raw brandy or
+whisky as another man would a glass of Madeira. In this, and the other
+phases of his life about town, I had no participation, being
+constitutionally as well as by training averse therefrom; and he, on
+the other hand, would never have listened to my sage advice to modify
+his loose habits. Our companionship was apart from these things; and,
+as I have said, I found in him a good deal that I could sympathize
+with, without approaching the moralities.
+
+That night, after I had been for some time asleep, I awoke and found
+myself listening to a scratching and shoving noise that seemed quite
+unaccountable. By-and-by it made me uneasy. I got up and went toward
+the parlor, from which the noise proceeded. On reaching the doorway, I
+saw Paton on his knees before one of the pilasters in the narrow end of
+the room; a candle was on the floor beside him, and he was busily at
+work at something, though what it was I could not make out. The creak
+of the threshold under my foot caused him to look round. He started
+violently, and sprang to his feet.
+
+"Oh! it's you, is it?" he said, after a moment. "Great Scott! how you
+scared me! I was--I dropped a bit of money hereabouts, and I was
+scraping about to find it. No matter--it wasn't much! Sorry I disturbed
+you, old boy." And, laughing, he picked up his candle and went into his
+own room.
+
+From this time there was a change vaguely perceptible in our mutual
+relations; we chatted together less than before, and did not see so
+much of each other. Paton was apt to be out when I was at home, and
+generally sat up after I was abed. He seemed to be busy about
+something--something connected with his profession, I judged; but,
+contrary to his former custom, he made no attempt to interest me in it.
+To tell the truth, I had begun to realize that our different tastes and
+pursuits must lead us further and further apart, and that our
+separation could be only a question of time. Paton was a materialist,
+and inclined to challenge all the laws and convictions that mankind has
+instituted and adopted; there was no limit to his radicalism. For
+example, on coming in one day, I found him with a curious antique
+poniard in his hands, which he had probably bought in some old
+curiosity shop. At first I fancied he meant to conceal it; but, if so,
+he changed his mind.
+
+"What do you think of that?" he said, holding it out to me. "There's a
+solution of continuity for you! Mind you don't prick yourself! It's
+poisoned up to the hilt!"
+
+"What do you want of such a thing?" I asked.
+
+"Well, killing began with Cain, and isn't likely to go out of fashion
+in our day. I might find it convenient to give one of my friends--you,
+for instance--a reminder of his mortality some time. You'll say murder
+is immoral. Bless you, man, we never could do without it! No man dies
+before his time, and some one dies every day that some one else may
+live."
+
+This was said in a jocose way, and, of course, Paton did not mean it.
+But it affected me unpleasantly nevertheless.
+
+As I was washing my hands in my room, I happened to look out of my
+window, which commanded a view of the garden at the back of the house.
+It was an hour after sunset, and the garden was nearly dark; but I
+caught a movement of something below, and, looking more closely, I
+recognized the ugly figure of the portier. He seemed to be tying
+something to the end of a long slender pole, like a gigantic fishing-
+rod; and presently he advanced beneath my window, and raised the pole
+as high as it would go against the wall of the house. The point he
+touched was the sill of the window below mine--probably that of the
+bedroom of Herr Kragendorf. At this juncture the portier seemed to be
+startled at something--possibly he saw me at my window; at all events,
+he lowered his pole and disappeared in the house.
+
+The next day Paton made an announcement that took me by surprise. He
+said he had made up his mind to quit Germany, and that very shortly. He
+mentioned having received letters from home, and declared he had got,
+or should soon have got, all he wanted out of this country. "I'm going
+to stop paying money for instruction," he said, "and begin to earn it
+by work. I shall stay another week, but then I'm off. Too slow here for
+me! I want to be in the midst of things, using my time."
+
+I did not attempt to dissuade him; in fact, my first feeling was rather
+one of relief; and this Paton, with his quick preceptions, was probably
+aware of.
+
+"Own up, old boy!" he said, laughing; "you'll be able to endure my
+absence. And yet you needn't think of me as worse than anybody else. If
+everybody were musicians and moralists, it would be nice, no doubt; but
+one might get tired of it in time, and then what would you do? You must
+give the scamps and adventurers their innings, after all! They may not
+do much good, but they give the other fellows occupation. I was born
+without my leave being asked, and I may act as suits me without asking
+anybody's leave."
+
+This was said on a certain bright morning after our first fall of snow;
+the tiled roofs of the houses were whitened with it, it cushioned the
+window-sills, and spread a sparkling blankness over the garden. In the
+streets it was already melting, and people were slipping and splashing
+on the wet and glistening pavements. After gazing out at this scene for
+a while, in a mood of unwonted thoughtfulness, Paton yawned, stretched
+himself, and declared his intention of taking a stroll before dinner.
+Accordingly he lit a cigar and went forth. I watched him go down the
+street and turn the corner.
+
+An hour afterward, just when dinner was on the table, I heard an
+unusual noise and shuffling on the stairs, and a heavy knock on the
+door. I opened it, and saw four men bearing on a pallet the form of my
+friend Paton. A police officer accompanied them. They brought Paton in,
+and laid him on his bed. The officer told me briefly what had happened,
+gave me certain directions, and, saying that a surgeon would arrive
+immediately, he departed with the four men tramping behind him.
+
+Paton had slipped in going across the street, and a tramway car had run
+over him. He was not dead, though almost speechless; but his injuries
+were such that it was impossible that he should recover. He kept his
+eyes upon me; they were as bright as ever, though his face was deadly
+pale. He seemed to be trying to read my thoughts--to find out my
+feeling about him, and my opinion of his condition. I was terribly
+shocked and grieved, and my face no doubt showed it. By-and-by I saw
+his lips move, and bent down to listen.
+
+"Confounded nuisance!" he whispered faintly in my car. "It's all right,
+though; I'm not going to die this time. I've got something to do, and
+I'm going to do it--devil take me if I don't!"
+
+He was unable to say more, and soon after the surgeon came in. He made
+an examination, and it was evident that he had no hope. His shrug of
+the shoulders was not lost upon Paton, who frowned, and made a defiant
+movement of the lip. But presently he said to me, still in the same
+whisper, "John, if that old fool should be right--he won't be, but in
+case of accidents--you must take charge of my things--the papers, and
+all. I'll make you heir of my expectations! Write out a declaration to
+that effect: I can sign my name; and he'll be witness."
+
+I did as he directed, and having explained to the surgeon the nature of
+the document, I put the pen in Paton's hand; but was obliged to guide
+his hand with my own in order to make an intelligible signature. The
+surgeon signed below, and Paton seemed satisfied. He closed his eyes;
+his sufferings appeared to be very slight. But, even while I was
+looking at him, a change came over his face--a deadly change. His eyes
+opened; they were no longer bright, but sunken and dull. He gave me a
+dusky look--whether of rage, of fear, or of entreaty, I could not tell.
+His lips parted, and a voice made itself audible; not like his own
+voice, but husky and discordant. "I'm going," it said. "But look out
+for me.... Do it yourself!"
+
+"Der Herr ist todt" (the man is dead), said the surgeon the next
+minute.
+
+It was true. Paton had gone out of this life at an hour's warning. What
+purpose or desire his last words indicated, there was nothing to show.
+He was dead; and yet I could hardly believe that it was so. He had been
+so much alive; so full of schemes and enterprises. Nothing now was left
+but that crushed and haggard figure, stiffening on the bed; nothing, at
+least, that mortal senses could take cognizance of. It was a strange
+thought.
+
+Paton's funeral took place a few days afterward. I returned from the
+graveyard weary in body and mind. At the door of the house stood the
+portier, who nodded to me, and said,
+
+"A very sad thing to happen, worthy sir; but so it is in the world. Of
+all the occupants of this house, one would have said the one least
+likely to be dead to-day was Herr Jeffries. Heh! if I had been the good
+Providence, I would have made away with the old gentleman of the
+_etage_ below, who is of no use to anybody."
+
+This, for lack of a better, was Paton's funeral oration. I climbed the
+three flights of stairs and let myself into our apartment--mine
+exclusively now. The place was terribly lonely; much more so than if
+Paton had been alive anywhere in the world. But he was dead; and, if
+his own philosophy were true, he was annihilated. But it was not true!
+How distinct and minute was my recollection of him--his look, his
+gestures, the tones of his voice. I could almost see him before me; my
+memory of him dead seemed clearer than when he was alive. In that
+invisible world of the mind was he not living still, and perhaps not
+far away.
+
+I sat down at the table where he had been wont to work, and unlocked
+the drawers in which he kept his papers. These, or some of them, I took
+out and spread before me. But I found it impossible, as yet, to
+concentrate my attention upon them; I pushed back my chair, and,
+rising, went to the piano. Here I remained for perhaps a couple of
+hours, striking the vague chords that echo wandering thoughts. I was
+trying to banish this haunting image of Paton from my mind, and at
+length I partly succeeded.
+
+All at once, however, the impression of him (as I may call it) came
+back with a force and vividness that startled me. I stopped playing,
+and sat for a minute perfectly still. I felt that Paton was in the
+room; that if I looked round I should see him. I however restrained
+myself from looking round with all the strength of my will--wherefore I
+know not. What I felt was not fear, but the conviction that I was on
+the brink of a fearful and unprecedented experience--an experience
+that would not leave me as it found me. This strange struggle with
+myself taxed all my powers; the sweat started out on my forehead. At
+last the moment came when I could struggle no longer. I laid my hand on
+the keyboard, and pushed myself round on the stool. There was a
+momentary dazzle before my eyes, and after that I saw plainly. My hand,
+striking the keys, had produced a jarring discord; and while this was
+yet tingling in my ears, Paton, who was sitting in his old place at the
+table, with his back toward me, faced about in his chair, and his eyes
+met mine. I thought he smiled.
+
+My excitement was past, and was succeeded by a dead calm. I examined
+him critically. His appearance was much the same as when in life; nay,
+he was even more like himself than before. The subtle or crafty
+expression which had always been discernible in his features was now
+intensified, and there was something wild and covertly fierce in the
+shining of his gray eyes, something that his smile was unable to
+disguise. What was human and genial in my former friend had passed
+away, and what remained was evil--the kind of evil that I now perceived
+to have been at the base of his nature. It was a revelation of
+character terrible in its naked completeness. I knew at a glance that
+Paton must always have been a far more wicked man that I had ever
+imagined; and in his present state all the remains of goodness had been
+stripped away, and nothing but wickedness was left.
+
+I felt impelled, by an impulse for which I could not account, to
+approach the table and examine the papers once more; and now it entered
+into my mind to perceive a certain method and meaning in them that had
+been hidden from me before. It was as though I were looking at them
+through Paton's intelligence, and with his memory. He had in some way
+ceased to be visible to me; but I became aware that he wished me to sit
+down in his chair, and I did so. Under his guidance, and in obedience
+to a will that seemed to be my own, and yet was in direct opposition to
+my real will, I began a systematic study of the papers. Paton,
+meanwhile, remained close to me, though I could no longer see him; but
+I felt the gaze of his fierce, shining eyes, and his crafty, evil
+smile. I soon obtained a tolerable insight into what the papers meant,
+and what was the scheme in which Paton had been so much absorbed at the
+time of his death, and which he had been so loath to abandon.
+
+It was a wicked and cruel scheme, worked out to the smallest
+particular. But, though I understood its hideousness intellectually, it
+aroused in mo no corresponding emotion; my sensitiveness to right arid
+wrong seemed stupefied or inoperative. I could say, "This is wicked,"
+but I could not awaken in myself a horror of committing the wickedness;
+and, moreover, I knew that, if the influence Paton was able to exercise
+over me continued, I must in due time commit it.
+
+Presently I became aware, or, to speak more accurately, I seemed to
+remember, that there was something in Paton's room which it was
+incumbent on me to procure. I went thither, lifted up a corner of the
+rag between the bed and the stove, and beheld, in an aperture in the
+floor, of the existence of which I had till now known nothing, the
+antique poisoned dagger that Paton had showed me a few weeks before,
+and which I had not seen since then. I brought it back to the sitting-
+room, put it in a drawer of the table, and locked the drawer, at the
+same time making a mental note to the effect that I should reopen the
+drawer at a certain hour of the night and take the dagger out. All this
+while Paton was close at hand, though not visible to sight; but I had a
+sort of inner perception of his presence and movements. All at once, at
+about the hour of sunset, I saw him again; he moved toward the looking-
+glass at the narrow end of the room, laid his hand upon one of the
+pilasters, glanced at me over his shoulder, and immediately seemed to
+stoop down. As I sat, the edge of the table hid him from sight. I stood
+up and looked across. He was not there; and a kind of reaction of my
+nerves informed me that he was gone absolutely, for the time.
+
+This reaction produced a lassitude impossible to describe; it was
+overpowering, and I had no choice but to yield to it. I dropped back in
+my chair, leaned forward on the table, and instantly fell into a heavy
+sleep, or stupor.
+
+I awoke abruptly, with a sensation as if a hand had been laid on my
+shoulder. It was night, and I knew that the hour I had noted in my mind
+was at hand. I opened the drawer and took out the dagger, which I put
+in my pocket. The house was quite silent. A shiver passed through me. I
+was aware that Paton was standing at the narrow end of the room,
+waiting for me: Yes--there he was, or the impression of him in my
+brain--what did it matter? I arose mechanically and walked toward him.
+He had no need to direct me: I knew all there was to do, and how to do
+it. I knelt on the floor, laid my shoulder against the pilaster, and
+pushed it laterally. It moved aside on a pivot, disclosing an iron ring
+let into the floor. I laid hold of this ring, and lifted. A section of
+the floor came up, and I saw a sort of ladder descending
+perpendicularly into darkness. Down the ladder Paton went, and I
+followed him. Arrived at the bottom, I turned to the left, led by an
+instinct or a fascination; passed along a passage barely wide enough to
+admit me, until I came against a smooth, hard surface. I passed my hand
+over it until I touched a knob or catch, which I pressed, and the
+surface gave way before me like a door. I stumbled forward, and found
+myself in a room of what was doubtless Herr Kragendorf's apartment. A
+keen, cold air smote against my face; and with it came a sudden influx
+of strength and self-possession. I felt that, for a moment at least,
+the fatal influence of Paton upon me was broken. But what was that
+sound of a struggle--those cries and gasps, that seemed to come from an
+adjoining room?
+
+I sprang forward, opened a door, and beheld a tall old man, with white
+hair and beard, in the grasp of a ruffian whom I at once recognized as
+the portier. A broken window showed how he had effected his entrance.
+One hand held the old man by the throat; in the other was a knife,
+which he was prevented from using by a young woman, who had flung
+herself upon him in such a way as to trammel his movements. In another
+moment, however, he would have shaken her off.
+
+But that moment was not allowed him. I seized him with a strength that
+amazed myself--a strength which never came upon me before or since. The
+conflict lasted but a breath or two; I hurled him to the floor, and, as
+he fell, his right arm was doubled under him, and the knife which he
+held entered his back beneath the left shoulder-blade. When I rose up
+from the whirl and fury of the struggle, I saw the old man reclining
+exhausted on the bosom of the girl. I knew him, despite his white hair
+and beard. And the face that bent so lovingly above him was the face
+that had looked into mine that night on the street--the face of the
+blue-eyed maiden--of a younger and a lovelier Juliet! As I gazed, there
+came a thundering summons at the door, and the police entered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My poor uncle Koerner had not prospered after his great stroke of
+roguery. His wife had died of a broken heart, after giving birth to a
+daughter, and his stolen riches had vanished almost as rapidly as they
+were acquired. He had at last settled down with his daughter in this
+old house. The treasure in the leathern bag, though a treasure to him,
+was not of a nature to excite general cupidity. It consisted, not of
+precious stones, but of relics of his dead wife--her rings, a lock of
+her hair, her letters, a miniature of her in a gold case. These poor
+keepsakes, and his daughter, had been the only solace of his lonely and
+remorseful life.
+
+It was uncertain whether Paton and the portier had planned the robbery
+together, or separately, and in ignorance of each other's purpose. Nor
+can I tell whether my disembodied visitor came to me with good or with
+evil intent. Wicked spirits, even when they seem to have power to carry
+out their purposes, are perhaps only permitted to do so, so far as is
+consistent with an overruling good of which they know nothing.
+Certainly, if I had not descended the secret passage, Koerner would have
+been killed, and perhaps my Juliet likewise--the mother of my children.
+But should I have been led on to stab him myself, with the poisoned
+dagger, had the portier not been there? Juliet smiles and says No, and
+I am glad to agree with her. But I have never since then found that
+anniversary upon me, without a shudder of awe, and a dark thought of
+Paton Jeffries.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of David Poindexter's Disappearance and
+Other Tales, by Julian Hawthorne
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other
+Tales, by Julian Hawthorne
+#2 in our series by Julian Hawthorne
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales
+
+Author: Julian Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7057]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 3, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+DAVID POINDEXTER'S
+DISAPPEARANCE
+_AND OTHER TALES_
+
+BY
+JULIAN HAWTHORNE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  DAVID POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE
+  KEN'S MYSTERY
+  "WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE"
+  "SET NOT THY FOOT ON GRAVES"
+  MY FRIEND PATON
+
+
+
+
+DAVID POINDEXTER'S DISAPPEARANCE.
+
+
+Among the records of the English state trials are to be found many
+strange stories, which would, as the phrase is, make the fortune of a
+modern novelist. But there are also numerous cases, not less
+stimulating to imagination and curiosity, which never attained more
+than local notoriety, of which the law was able to take but
+comparatively small cognizance, although they became subjects of much
+unofficial discussion and mystification. Among these cases none,
+perhaps, is better worth recalling than that of David Poindexter. It
+will be my aim here to tell the tale as simply and briefly as possible
+--to repeat it, indeed, very much as it came to my ears while living,
+several years ago, near the scene in which its events took place. There
+is a temptation to amplify it, and to give it a more recent date and a
+different setting; but (other considerations aside) the story might
+lose in force and weight more than it would thereby gain in artistic
+balance and smoothness.
+
+David Poindexter was a younger son of an old and respected family in
+Sussex, England. He was born in London in 1785. He was educated at
+Oxford, with a view to his entering the clerical profession, and in the
+year 1810 he obtained a living in the little town of Witton, near
+Twickenham, known historically as the home of Sir John Suckling. The
+Poindexters had been much impoverished by the excesses of David's
+father and grandfather, and David seems to have had few or no resources
+beyond the very modest stipend appertaining to his position. He was, at
+all events, poor, though possessed of capacities which bade fair to
+open to him some of the higher prizes of his calling; but, on the other
+hand, there is evidence that he chafed at his poverty, and reason to
+believe that he had inherited no small share of the ill-regulated
+temperament which had proved so detrimental to the elder generations of
+his family.
+
+Personally he was a man of striking aspect, having long, dark hair,
+heavily-marked eyebrows, and blue eyes; his mouth and chin were
+graceful in contour, but wanting in resolution; his figure was tall,
+well knit, and slender. He was an eloquent preacher, and capable, when
+warmed by his subject, of powerfully affecting the emotions of his
+congregation. He was a great favorite with women--whom, however, he
+uniformly treated with coldness--and by no means unpopular with men,
+toward some of whom he manifested much less reserve. Nevertheless,
+before the close of the second year of his incumbency he was known to
+be paying his addresses to a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Edith
+Saltine, the only child of an ex-army officer. The colonel was a
+widower, and in poor health, and since he was living mainly on his
+half-pay, and had very little to give his daughter, the affair was
+looked upon as a love match, the rather since Edith was a handsome
+young woman of charming character. The Reverend David Poindexter
+certainly had every appearance of being deeply in love; and it is often
+seen that the passions of reserved men, when once aroused, are stronger
+than those of persons more generally demonstrative.
+
+Colonel Saltine did not at first receive his proposed son-in-law with
+favor. He was a valetudinarian, and accustomed to regard his daughter
+as his nurse by right, and he resented the idea of her leaving him
+forlorn for the sake of a good-looking parson. It is very likely that
+his objections might have had the effect of breaking off the match, for
+his daughter was devotedly attached to him, and hardly questioned his
+right to dispose of her as he saw fit; but after a while the worthy
+gentleman seems to have thought better of his contrariness. Poindexter
+had strong persuasive powers, and no doubt made himself personally
+agreeable to the colonel, and, moreover, it was arranged that the
+latter should occupy the same house with Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter after
+they were married. Nevertheless, the colonel was not a man to move
+rapidly, and the engagement had worn along for nearly a year without
+the wedding-day having been fixed. One winter evening in the early part
+of December, Poindexter dined with the colonel and Edith, and as the
+gentlemen were sitting over their wine the lover spoke on the topic
+that was uppermost in his thoughts, and asked his host whether there
+was any good reason why the marriage should not be consummated at once.
+
+"Christmas is at hand," the young man remarked; "why should it not be
+rendered doubly memorable by granting this great boon?"
+
+"For a parson, David, you are a deuced impatient man," the colonel
+said.
+
+"Parsons are human," the other exclaimed with warmth.
+
+"Humph! I suppose some of them are. In fact, David, if I didn't believe
+that there was something more in you than texts and litanies and the
+Athanasian creed, I'll be hanged if I'd ever have let you look twice at
+Edith. That girl has got blood in her veins, David; she's not to be
+thrown away on any lantern-jawed, white-livered doctor of souls, I can
+tell you."
+
+David held his head down, and seemed not to intend a reply; but he
+suddenly raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the colonel's. "You know
+what my father was," he said, in a low, distinct voice; "I am my
+father's son."
+
+"That idea has occurred to me more than once, David, and to say the
+truth, I've liked you none the less for it. But, then, what the deuce
+should a fellow like you want to do in a pulpit? I respect the cloth as
+much as any man, I hope, but leaving theory aside, and coming down to
+practice, aren't there fools and knaves enough in the world to carry on
+that business, without a fellow of heart and spirit like you going into
+it?"
+
+"Theory or no theory, there have been as great men in the pulpit as in
+any other position," said David, gloomily.
+
+"I don't say to the contrary: ecclesiastical history, and all that: but
+what I do say is, if a man is great in the pulpit, it's a pity he isn't
+somewhere else, where he could use his greatness to more advantage."
+
+"Well," remarked David, in the same somber tone, "I am not contented:
+so much I can admit to the father of the woman I love. But you know as
+well as I do that men nowadays are called to my profession not so much
+by the Divine summons as by the accident of birth. Were it not for the
+law of primogeniture, Colonel Saltine, the Church of England would be,
+for the most part, a congregation without a clergyman."
+
+"Gad! I'm much of your opinion," returned the colonel, with a grin;
+"but there are two doors, you know, for a second son to enter the world
+by. If he doesn't fancy a cassock, he can put on His Majesty's
+uniform."
+
+"Neither the discipline nor the activity of a soldier's life would suit
+me," David answered. "So far as I know my own nature, what it craves is
+freedom, and the enjoyment of its capacities. Only under such
+conditions could I show what I am capable of. In other words," he
+added, with a short laugh, "ten thousand a year is the profession I
+should choose."
+
+"Ah," murmured the colonel, heaving a sigh, "I doubt that's a
+profession we'd all of us like to practice as well as preach. What! no
+more wine? Oh, ay, Edith, of course! Well, go to her, sir, if you must;
+but when you come to my age you'll have found out which wears the best
+--woman or the bottle. I'll join you presently, and maybe we'll see
+what can be done about this marrying business."
+
+So David went to Edith, and they had a clear hour together before they
+heard the colonel's slippered tread hobbling through the hall. Just
+before he opened the door, David had said: "I sometimes doubt whether
+you wholly love me, after all." And she had answered:
+
+"If I do not, it is because I sometimes feel as if you were not your
+real self."
+
+The colonel heard nothing of this odd bit of dialogue; but when he had
+subsided, with his usual grunt, into his arm-chair beside the fire-
+place, and Edith had brought him his foot-stool and his pipe, and pat
+the velvet skull cap on his bald pate, he drew a long whiff of tobacco
+smoke, and said:
+
+"If you young folks want to set up housekeeping a month from to-day,
+you can do it, for all I care."
+
+Little did any one of the three suspect what that month was destined to
+bring forth.
+
+David Poindexter's father had been married twice, his second wife dying
+within a year of her wedding-day, and two weeks after bringing David
+into the world. This lady, whose maiden name was Lambert, had a brother
+who was a gentleman farmer, and a tolerably successful one. His farm
+was situated in the parish of Witton, and he owned a handsome house on
+the outskirts of the town itself. He and David's father had been at one
+time great friends, insomuch that David was named after him, and
+Lambert, as his godfather as well as uncle, presented the child with
+the usual silver mug. Lambert was never known to have married, but
+there were rumors, dating as far as back David's earliest
+recollections, to the effect that he had entertained a secret and
+obscure passion for some foreign woman of great beauty, but of doubtful
+character and antecedents. Nobody could be found who had ever seen this
+woman, or would accept the responsibility of asserting that she
+actually existed; but she afforded a convenient means of accounting for
+many things that seemed mysterious in Mr. Lambert's conduct. At length,
+when David was about eight years old, his godfather left England
+abruptly, and without telling any one whither he was going or when he
+would return. As a matter of fact he never did return, nor had any
+certain news ever been heard of him since his departure. Neither his
+house nor his farm was ever sold, however, though they were rented to
+more than one tenant during a number of years. It was said, also, that
+Lambert held possession of some valuable real estate in London.
+Nevertheless, in process of time he was forgotten, or remembered only
+as a name. And the new generation of men, though they might speak of
+"the old Lambert House," neither knew nor cared how it happened to have
+that title. For aught they could tell, it might have borne it ever
+since Queen Elizabeth's time. Even David Poindexter had long ceased to
+think of his uncle as anything much more substantial than a dream.
+
+He was all the more surprised, therefore, when, on the day following
+the interview just mentioned, he received a letter from the late David
+Lambert's lawyers. It informed him in substance that his uncle had died
+in Constantinople, unmarried (so far as could be ascertained),
+intestate, and without blood-relations surviving him. Under these
+circumstances, his property, amounting to one hundred and sixty
+thousand pounds, the bulk of which was invested in land and houses in
+the city of London, as well as the country-seat in Witton known as the
+old Lambert House, and the farm lands thereto appertaining--all this
+wealth, not to mention four or five thousand pounds in ready money,
+came into possession of the late David Lambert's nearest of kin, who,
+as it appeared, was none other than the Reverend David Poindexter.
+"Would that gentleman, therefore be kind enough, at his convenience, to
+advise his obedient servants as to what disposition he wished to make
+of his inheritance?"
+
+It was a Saturday morning, and the young clergyman was sitting at his
+study table; the fire was burning in the grate at his right hand, and
+his half-written sermon lay on the desk before him. After reading the
+letter, at first hurriedly and amazedly, afterward more slowly, with
+frequent pauses, he folded it up, and, still holding it in his hand,
+leaned back in his chair, and remained for the better part of an hour
+in a state of deep preoccupation. Many changing expressions passed
+across his face, and glowed in his dark-blue eyes, and trembled on the
+curves of his lips. At last he roused himself, sat erect, and smote the
+table violently with his clinched hand. Yes, it was true it was real;
+he, David Poindexter, an hour ago the poor imprisoned clergyman of the
+Church of England--he, as by a stroke of magic, was free, powerful,
+emancipated, the heir of seven thousand pounds a year! And what about
+tomorrow's sermon?
+
+He rose up smiling, with a vivid color in his cheeks and a bright
+sparkle in his eyes. He stretched himself to his full height, threw out
+his arms, and smote his chest with both fists. What a load was gone
+from his heart! What a new ardor of life was this that danced in his
+veins! He walked with long strides to the window, and threw it wide
+open, breathing in the rush of bright icy air with deep inhalations.
+Freedom! emancipation! Yonder, above the dark, level boughs of the
+cedar of Lebanon, rose the square, gray tower of the church. Yesterday
+it was the incubus of his vain hopes; to-day it was the tomb of a dead
+and despised past. What had David Poindexter to do with calling sinners
+to repentance? Let him first find out for himself what sin was like.
+Then he looked to the right, where between the leafless trees Colonel
+Saltine's little dwelling raised its red-tile roof above the high
+garden-wall. And so, Edith, you doubted whether I were at all times my
+real self? You shall not need to make that complaint hereafter. As for
+to-morrow's sermon--I am not he who wrote sermons, nor shall I ever
+preach any. Away with it, therefore!
+
+He strode back to the table, took up the sheets of manuscript from the
+desk, tore them across, and laid them on the burning coals. They
+smoldered for a moment, then blazed up, and the draught from the open
+window whisked the blackened ashes up the chimney. David stood,
+meanwhile, with his arms folded, smiling to himself, and repeating, in
+a low voice:
+
+"Never again--never again--never again."
+
+By-and-by he reseated himself at his desk, and hurriedly wrote two or
+three notes, one of which was directed to Miss Saltine. He gave them to
+his servant with an injunction to deliver them at their addresses
+during the afternoon. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to find
+that it was already past twelve o'clock. He went up-stairs, packed a
+small portmanteau, made some changes in his dress, and came down again
+with a buoyant step. There was a decanter half full of sherry on the
+sideboard in the dining-room; he poured out and drank two glasses in
+succession. This done, he put on his hat, and left the house with his
+portmanteau in his hand, and ten minutes later he had intercepted the
+London coach, and was bowling along on his way to the city.
+
+There was a dramatic instinct in David, as in many eloquent men of
+impressionable temperament, which caused him every now and then to look
+upon all that was occurring as a sort of play, and to resolve to act
+his part in a telling and picturesque manner. On that Saturday
+afternoon he had an interview with the late Mr. Lambert's lawyers, and
+they were struck by his calm, lofty, and indifferent bearing. He seemed
+to regard worldly prosperity as a thing beneath him, yet to feel in a
+half-impatient way the responsibility which the control of wealth
+forced upon him.
+
+"It is my purpose not to allow this legacy to interfere permanently
+with my devotion to my higher duties," he remarked, "but I have taken
+measures to enable myself to place these affairs upon a fixed and
+convenient footing. I presume," he added, fixing his eyes steadily upon
+his interlocutor, "that you have thoroughly investigated the
+possibility of there being any claimant nearer than myself?"
+
+"No such claimant could exist," the lawyer replied, "unless the late
+Mr. Lambert had married and had issue."
+
+"Is there, then, any reason to suppose that he contemplated the
+contingency that has happened?"
+
+"If he bestowed any thought at all upon the subject, that contingency
+could hardly have failed to present itself to his mind," the lawyer
+answered.
+
+David consented to receive the draft for a thousand pounds which was
+tendered him, and took his leave. He returned to his rooms at the
+Tavistock Hotel, Covent Garden. In the evening, after making some
+changes in his costume, he went to the theatre, and saw Kean play
+something of Shakespeare's. When the play was over, and he was out in
+the frosty air again, he felt it impossible to sleep. It was after
+midnight before he returned to his hotel, with flushed cheeks, and a
+peculiar brilliance in his eyes. He slept heavily, but awoke early in
+the morning with a slight feeling of feverishness. It was Sunday
+morning. He thought of his study in the parsonage at Witton, with its
+bright fire, its simplicity, its repose. He thought of the church, and
+of the congregation which he would never face again. And Edith--what
+had been her thoughts and dreams during the night? He got up, and went
+to the window. It looked out upon a narrow, inclosed court. The sky was
+dingy, the air was full of the muffled tumult of the city. His present
+state, as to its merely external aspect, was certainly not so agreeable
+as that of the morning before. Ay, but what a vista had opened now
+which then was closed! David dressed himself, and went down to his
+breakfast. While sitting at his table in the window, looking out upon
+the market-place, and stirring his cup of Mocha, a gentleman came up
+and accosted him.
+
+"Am I mistaken, or is your name Poindexter?"
+
+David looked up, and recognized Harwood Courtney, a son of Lord
+Derwent. Courtney was a man of fashion, a member of the great clubs,
+and a man, as they say, with a reputation. He was a good twenty years
+older than David, and had been the companion of the latter's father in
+some of his wildest escapades. To David, at this moment, he was the
+representative and symbol of that great, splendid, unregenerate world,
+with which it was his purpose to make acquaintance.
+
+"You are not mistaken, Mr. Courtney," he said, quietly. "Have you
+breakfasted? It is some time since we have met."
+
+"Why, yes, egad! If I remember right, you were setting out on another
+road than that which I was travelling. However, we sinners, you know,
+depend upon you parsons to pull us up in time to prevent any--er--any
+_very_ serious catastrophe! Ha! ha!"
+
+"I understand you; but for my part I have left the pulpit," said David,
+uttering the irrevocable words with a carelessness which he himself
+wondered at.
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Courtney, with a little intonation of surprise and
+curiosity, which his good breeding prevented him from formulating more
+explicitly. As David made no rejoinder, he presently continued: "Then--
+er--perhaps you might find it in your way to dine with me this evening.
+Only one or two friends--a very quiet Sunday party."
+
+"Thank you," said David. "I had intended going to bed betimes to-night;
+but it will give me pleasure to meet a quiet party."
+
+"Then that's settled," exclaimed Courtney; "and meanwhile, if you've
+finished your coffee, what do you say to a turn in the Row? I've got my
+trap here, and a breath of air will freshen us up."
+
+David and Courtney spent the day together, and by evening the young ex-
+clergyman had made the acquaintance of many of the leading men about
+town. He had also allowed the fact to transpire that his pecuniary
+standing was of the soundest kind; but this was done so skillfully--
+with such a lofty air--that even Courtney, who was as cynical as any
+man, was by no means convinced that David's change of fortune had
+anything to do with his relinquishing the pulpit.
+
+"David Poindexter is no fool," he remarked, confidentially, to a
+friend. "He has double the stuff in him that the old fellow had. You
+must get up early to get the better of a man who has been a parson, and
+seen through himself!"
+
+David, in fact, felt himself the superior, intellectually and by
+nature, of most of the men he saw. He penetrated and comprehended them,
+but to them he was impenetrable; a certain air of authority rested upon
+him; he had abandoned the service of God; but the training whereby he
+had fitted himself for it stood him in good stead; it had developed his
+insight, his subtlety, and, strange to say, his powers of
+dissimulation. Contrary to what is popularly supposed, his study of the
+affairs of the other world had enabled him to deal with this world's
+affairs with a half-contemptuous facility. As for the minor
+technicalities, the social pass-words, and so forth, to which much
+importance is generally ascribed, David had nothing to fear from them;
+first, because he was a man of noble manners, naturally as well as by
+cultivation; and, secondly, because the fact that he had been a
+clergyman acted as a sort of breastplate against criticism. It would be
+thought that he chose to appear ignorant of that which he really knew.
+
+As for Mr. Courtney's dinner, though it may doubtless have been a quiet
+one from his point of view, it differed considerably from such Sunday
+festivities as David had been accustomed to. A good deal of wine was
+drunk, and the conversation (a little cautious at first, on David's
+account) gradually thawed into freedom. It was late when they rose from
+table; and then a proposition was made to go to a certain well-known
+club in St. James's Street. David went with the rest, and, for the
+first time in his life, played cards for money; he lost seven hundred
+pounds--more money than he had handled during the last three years--but
+he kept his head, and at three o'clock in the morning drove with
+Courtney to the latter's lodgings, with five hundred pounds in his
+pocket over and above the sum with which he had begun to play. Here was
+a wonderful change in his existence; but it did not seem to him half so
+wonderful as his reason told him it was. It seemed natural--as if,
+after much wandering, he had at last found his way into the place where
+he belonged. It is said that savages, educated from infancy amid
+civilized surroundings, will, on breathing once more their native air,
+tear off their clothes and become savages again. Somewhat similar may
+have been David's case, who, inheriting in a vivid degree the manly
+instincts of his forefathers, had forcibly and by constraint of
+circumstances lived a life wholly opposed to these impulses--an
+artificial life, therefore. But now at length he had come into his
+birthright, and felt at home.
+
+One episode of the previous evening remained in his memory: it had
+produced an effect upon him out of proportion with its apparent
+significance. A gentleman, a guest at the dinner, a small man with
+sandy hair and keen gray eyes, on being presented to David had looked
+at him with an expression of shrewd perplexity, and said:
+
+"Have we not met before?"
+
+"It is possible, but I confess I do not recollect it," replied David.
+
+"The name was not Poindexter," continued the other, "but the face--
+pardon me--I could have taken my oath to."
+
+"Where did this meeting take place?" asked David, smiling.
+
+"In Paris, at ----'s," said the gray-eyed gentleman (mentioning the
+name of a well-known French nobleman).
+
+"You are quite certain, of that?"
+
+"Yes. It was but a month since."
+
+"I was never in Paris. For three years I have hardly been out of sight
+of London," David answered. "What was your friend's name?"
+
+"It has slipped my memory," he replied. "An Italian name, I fancy. But
+he was a man--pardon me--of very striking appearance, and I conversed
+with him for more than an hour."
+
+Now it is by no means an uncommon occurrence for two persons to bear a
+close resemblance to each other, but (aside from the fact that David
+was anything but an ordinary-looking man) this mistake of his new
+acquaintance affected him oddly. He involuntarily associated it with
+the internal and external transformation which had happened to him, and
+said to himself:
+
+"This counterpart of mine was prophetic: he was what I am to be--what I
+am." And fantastic though the notion was, he could not rid himself of
+it.
+
+David returned to Witton about the middle of the week. In the interval
+he had taken measures to make known to those concerned the revolution
+of his affairs, and to have the old Lambert mansion opened, and put in
+some sort of condition for his reception. He had gone forth on foot, an
+unknown, poor, and humble clergyman; he returned driving behind a pair
+of horses, by far the most important personage in the town; and yet
+this outward change was far less great than the change within. His
+reception could scarcely be called cordial; though not wanting in the
+technical respect and ceremony due to him as a gentleman of wealth and
+influence, he could perceive a half concealed suspense and misgiving,
+due unmistakably to his attitude as a recreant clergyman.
+
+In fact, his worthy parishioners were in a terrible quandary how to
+reconcile their desire to stand well with their richest fellow-
+townsman, and their dismayed recognition of that townsman's scandalous
+professional conduct. David smiled at this, but it made him bitter too.
+He had intended once more to call the congregation together, and
+frankly to explain to them the reasons, good or bad, which had induced
+him to withdraw from active labor in the church. But now he determined
+to preserve a proud and indifferent silence. There was only one person
+who had a right to call him to account, and it was not without
+fearfulness that he looked forward to his meeting with her. However,
+the sooner such fears are put at rest the better, and he called upon
+Edith on the evening of his arrival. Her father had been in bed for two
+days with a cold, and she was sitting alone in the little parlor.
+
+She rose at his entrance with a deep blush, and a look of mixed
+gladness and anxiety. Her eyes swiftly noted the change in his dress,
+for he had considerably modified, though not as yet wholly laid aside,
+the external marks of his profession. She held back from him with a
+certain strangeness and timidity, so that lie did not kiss her cheek,
+but only her hand. The first words of greeting were constrained and
+conventional, but at last he said:
+
+"All is changed, Edith, except our love for each other."
+
+"I do not hold you to that," she answered, quickly.
+
+"But you can not turn me from it," he said, with a smile.
+
+"I do not know you yet," said she, looking away.
+
+"When I last saw you, you said you doubted whether I were my real self.
+I have become my real self since then."
+
+"Because you are not what you were, it does not follow that you are
+what you should be."
+
+"Surely, Edith, that is not reasonable. I was what circumstances forced
+me to be, henceforth I shall be what God made me."
+
+"Did God, then, have no hand in those circumstances?"
+
+"Not more, at all events, than in these."
+
+Edith shook her head. "God does not absolve us from holy vows."
+
+"But how if I can not, with loyalty to my inner conscience, hold to
+those vows?" exclaimed David, with more warmth. "I have long felt that
+I was not fitted for this sacred calling. Before the secret tribunal of
+my self-knowledge, I have stood charged with the sin of hypocrisy. It
+has been God's will that I be delivered from that sin."
+
+"Why did you not say that before, David?" she demanded, looking at him.
+"Why did you remain a hypocrite until it was for your worldly benefit
+to abandon your trust? Can you say, on your word of honor, that you
+would stand where you do now if you were still poor instead of rich?"
+
+"Men's eyes are to some extent opened and their views are confirmed by
+events. They make our dreams and forebodings into realities. We
+question in our minds, and events give us the answers."
+
+"Such an argument might excuse any villainy," said Edith, lifting her
+head indignantly.
+
+"Villainy! Do you use that word to me?" exclaimed David.
+
+"Not unless your own heart bids me--and I do not know your heart."
+
+"Because you do not love me?"
+
+"You may be right," replied Edith, striving to steady her voice; "but
+at least I believed I loved you."
+
+"You are cured of that belief, it seems--as I am cured of many foolish
+faiths," said David, with gloomy bitterness. "Well, so be it! The love
+that waits upon a fastidious conscience is never the deepest love. My
+love is not of that complexion. Were it possible that the shadow of
+sin, or of crime itself, could descend upon you, it would but render
+you dearer to me than before."
+
+"You may break my heart, David, if you will," cried the girl,
+tremulously, yet resolutely, "but I reverence love more than I love
+you."
+
+David had turned away as if to leave the room, but he paused and
+confronted her once more.
+
+"At any rate, we will understand each other," said he. "Do you make it
+your condition that I should go back to the ministry?"
+
+Edith was still seated, but the condition of the crisis compelled her
+to rise. She stood before him, her dark eyes downcast, her lips
+trembling, nervously drawing the fingers of one hand through the clasp
+of the other. She was tempted to yield to him, for she could imagine no
+happiness in life without him; but a rare sanity and integrity of mind
+made her perceive that he had pushed the matter to a false alternative.
+It was not a question of preaching or not preaching sermons, but of
+sinful apostasy from an upright life. At last she raised her eyes,
+which shone like dark jewels in her pale countenance, and said, slowly,
+"We had better part."
+
+"Then my sins be upon your head!" cried David, passionately.
+
+The blood mounted to her cheeks at the injustice of this rejoinder, but
+she either could not or would not answer again. She remained erect and
+proud until the door had closed between them; what she did after that
+neither David nor any one else knew.
+
+The apostate David seems to have determined that, if she were to bear
+the burden of his sins, they should be neither few nor light. His life
+for many weeks after this interview was a scandal and a disgrace. The
+old Lambert mansion was the scene of carousals and excesses such as
+recalled the exploits of the monks of Medmenham. Harwood Courtney, and
+a score of dissolute gentlemen like him, not to speak of other
+visitors, thronged the old house day and night; drinking, gaming, and
+yet wilder doings gave the sober little town no rest, till the Reverend
+David Poindexter was commonly referred to as the Wicked Parson.
+Meanwhile Edith Saltine bore herself with a grave, pale impassiveness,
+which some admired, others wondered at, and others deemed an indication
+that she had no heart. If she had not, so much the better for her; for
+her father was almost as difficult to manage as David himself. The old
+gentleman could neither comprehend nor forgive what seemed to him his
+daughter's immeasurable perversity. One day she had been all for
+marrying a poor, unknown preacher; and the next day, when to marry him
+meant to be the foremost lady in the neighborhood, she dismissed him
+without appeal. And the worst of it was that, much as the poor
+colonel's mouth watered at the feasts and festivities of the Lambert
+mansion, he was prevented by the fatality of his position from taking
+any part in them. So Edith could find no peace either at home or
+abroad; and if it dwelt not in her own heart, she was indeed forlorn.
+
+What may have been the cost of all this dissipation it was difficult to
+say, but several observant persons were of opinion that the parson's
+income could not long stand it. There were rumors that he had heavy
+bills owing in several quarters, which he could pay only by realizing
+some of his investments. On the other hand, it was said that he played
+high and constantly, and usually had the devil's luck. But it is
+impossible to gauge the truth of such stories, and the Wicked Parson
+himself took no pains either to deny or confirm them. He was always the
+loudest, the gayest, and the most reckless of his company, and the
+leader and inspirer of all their wild proceedings; but it was noticed
+that, though he laughed often, he never smiled; and that his face, when
+in repose, bore traces of anything but happiness. For some cause or
+other, moreover--but whether maliciously or remorsefully was open to
+question--he never entirely laid aside his clerical garb; he seemed
+either to delight in profaning it, or to retain it as the reminder and
+scourge of his own wickedness.
+
+One night there was a great gathering up at the mansion, and the noise
+and music were kept up till well past the small hours of the morning.
+Gradually the guests departed, some going toward London, some
+elsewhere. At last only Harwood Courtney remained, and he and David sat
+down in the empty dining-room, disorderly with the remains of the
+carousal, to play picquet. They played, with short intermissions, for
+nearly twenty-four hours. At last David threw down his cards, and said,
+quietly:
+
+"Well, that's all. Give me until to-morrow."
+
+"With all the pleasure in life, my boy," replied the other; "and your
+revenge, too, if you like. Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is to
+take a nap."
+
+"You may do so if you please," said David; "for my part, I must take a
+turn on horseback first. I can never sleep till I have breathed fresh
+air."
+
+They parted accordingly, Courtney going to his room, and David to the
+stables, whence he presently issued, mounted on his bay mare, and rode
+eastward. On his way he passed Colonel Saltine's house, and drew rein
+for a moment beside it, looking up at Edith's window. It was between
+four and five o'clock of a morning in early April; the sky was clear,
+and all was still and peaceful. As he sat in the saddle looking up, the
+blind of the window was raised and the sash itself opened, and Edith,
+in her white night-dress, with her heavy brown hair falling round her
+face and on her shoulders, gazed out. She regarded him with a half-
+bewildered expression, as if doubting of his reality, For a moment they
+remained thus; then he waved his hand to her with a wild gesture of
+farewell, and rode on, passing immediately out of sight behind the dark
+foliage of the cedar of Lebanon.
+
+On reaching the London high-road the horseman paused once more, and
+seemed to hesitate what course to pursue; but finally he turned to the
+right, and rode in a southerly direction. The road wound gently, and
+dipped and rose to cross low hills; trees bordered the way on each
+side; and as the sun rose they threw long shadows westward, while the
+birds warbled and twittered in the fields and hedges. By-and-by a clump
+of woodland came into view about half a mile off, the road passing
+through the midst of it. As David entered it at one end, he saw,
+advancing toward him through the shade and sunlight, a rider mounted on
+a black horse. The latter seemed to be a very spirited animal, and as
+David drew near it suddenly shied and reared so violently that any but
+a practiced horseman would have been unseated. No catastrophe occurred,
+however, and a moment afterward the two cavaliers were face to face. No
+sooner had their eyes met than, as if by a common impulse, they both
+drew rein, and set staring at each other with a curiosity which merged
+into astonishment. At length the stranger on the black horse gave a
+short laugh, and said:
+
+"I perceive that the same strange thing has struck us both, sir. If you
+won't consider it uncivil, I should like to know who you are. My name
+is Giovanni Lambert."
+
+"Giovanni Lambert," repeated David, with a slight involuntary movement;
+"unless I am mistaken, I have heard mention of you. But you are not
+Italian?"
+
+"Only on my mother's side. But you have the advantage of me."
+
+"You will understand that I could not have heard of you without feeling
+a strong desire to meet you," said David, dismounting as he spoke. "It
+is, I think, the only desire left me in the world. I had marked this
+wood, as I came along, as an inviting place to rest in. Would it suit
+you to spend an hour here, where we can converse better at our ease
+than in saddle; or does time press you? As for me, I have little more
+to do with time."
+
+"I am at your service, sir, with pleasure," returned the other, leaping
+lightly to the ground, and revealing by the movement a pair of small
+pistols attached to the belt beneath his blue riding surtout. "It was
+in my mind, also, to stretch my legs and take a pull at my pipe, for,
+early as it is, I have ridden far this morning."
+
+At the point where they had halted a green lane branched off into the
+depths of the wood, and down this they passed, leading their horses.
+When they were out of sight of the road they made their animals fast in
+such a way that they could crop the grass, and themselves reclined at
+the foot of a broad-limbed oak, and they remained in converse there for
+upward of an hour.
+
+In fact, it must been several hours later (for the sun was high in the
+heavens) when one of them issued from the wood. He was mounted on a
+black horse, and wore a blue surtout and high boots. After looking up
+and down the road, and assuring himself that no one was in sight, he
+turned his horse's head toward London, and set off at a round canter.
+Coming to a cross-road, he turned to the right, and rode for an hour in
+that direction, crossing the Thames near Hampton Wick. In the afternoon
+he entered London from the south, and put up at an obscure hostelry.
+Having seen his horse attended to, and eaten something himself, he went
+to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. On awaking, he ate
+heartily again, and spent the rest of the day in writing and arranging
+a quantity of documents that were packed in his saddle-bags. The next
+morning early he paid his reckoning, rode across London Bridge, and
+shaped his course toward the west.
+
+Meanwhile the town of Witton was in vast perturbation. When Mr. Harwood
+Courtney woke up late in the afternoon, and came yawning down-stairs to
+get his breakfast, he learned, in answer to his inquiries, that nothing
+had been seen of David Poindexter since he rode away thirteen hours
+ago. Mr. Courtney expressed anxiety at this news, and dispatched his
+own valet and one of David's grooms to make investigations in the
+neighborhood. These two personages investigated to such good purpose
+that before night the whole neighborhood was aware that David
+Poindexter had disappeared. By the next morning it became evident that
+something had happened to the Wicked Parson, and some people ventured
+to opine that the thing which had happened to him was that he had run
+away. And indeed it was astonishing to find to how many worthy people
+this evil-minded parson was in debt. Every other man you met had a bill
+against the Reverend David Poindexter in his pocket; and as the day
+wore on, and still no tidings of the missing man were received,
+individuals of the sheriff and bailiff species began to be
+distinguishable amid the crowd. But the great sensation was yet to
+come. How the report started no one knew, but toward supper-time it
+passed from mouth to mouth that Mr. Harwood Courtney, in the course of
+his twenty-four hours of picquet with Poindexter, had won from the
+latter not his ready money alone, but the entire property and estates
+that had accrued to him as nearest of kin to the late David Lambert.
+And it was added that, as the debt was a gambling transaction, and
+therefore not technically recoverable by process of law, Mr. Courtney
+was naturally very anxious for his debtor to put in an appearance. Now
+it so happened that this report, unlike many others ostensibly more
+plausible, was true in every particular.
+
+Probably there was more gossip at the supper-tables of Witton that
+night than in any other town of ten times the size in the United
+Kingdom; and it was formally agreed that Poindexter had escaped to the
+Continent, and would either remain in hiding there, or take passage by
+the first opportunity to the American colonies, or the United States,
+as they had now been called for some years past. Nobody defended the
+reverend apostate, but, on the other hand, nobody pretended to be sorry
+for Mr. Harwood Courtney; it was generally agreed that they had both of
+them got what they deserved. The only question was, What was to become
+of the property? Some people said it ought to belong to Edith Saltine;
+but of course poetical justice of that kind was not to be expected.
+
+Edith, meanwhile, had kept herself strictly secluded. She was the last
+person who had seen David Poindexter, but she had mentioned the fact to
+no one. She was also the only person who did not believe that he had
+escaped, but who felt convinced that he was dead, and that he had died
+by his own hand. That gesture of farewell and of despair which he had
+made to her as he vanished behind the cedar of Lebanon had for her a
+significance capable of only one interpretation. Were he alive, he
+would have returned.
+
+On the evening of the day following the events just recorded, the
+solitude of her room suddenly became terrible to Edith, and she was
+irresistibly impelled to dress herself and go forth in the open air.
+She wound a veil about her head, and, avoiding the main thoroughfare,
+slipped out of the town unperceived, and gained the free country. After
+a while she found herself approaching a large tree, which spread its
+branches across a narrow lane that made a short-cut to the London
+highway. Beneath the tree was a natural seat, formed of a fragment of
+stone, and here David and she had often met and sat. It was a mild,
+still evening; she sat down on the stone, and removed her veil. The
+moon, then in its first quarter, was low in the west, and shone beneath
+the branches of the tree.
+
+Presently she was aware--though not by any sound--that some one was
+approaching, and she drew back in the shadow of the tree. Down the lane
+came a horseman, mounted on a tall, black horse. The outline of his
+figure and the manner in which he rode fixed Edith's gaze as if by a
+spell, and made the blood hum in her ears. Nearer he came, and now his
+face was discernible in the level moonlight. It was impossible to
+mistake that countenance: the horseman was David Poindexter. His
+costume, however, was different from any he had ever before worn; there
+was nothing clerical about it; nor was that black horse from the
+Poindexter stables. Then, too, how noiselessly he rode!--as noiselessly
+as a ghost. That, however, must have been because his horse's hoofs
+fell on the soft turf. He rode slowly, and his head was bent as if in
+thought; but almost before Edith could draw her breath, much less to
+speak, he had passed beneath the boughs of the tree, and was riding on
+toward the village. Now he had vanished in the vague light and shadow,
+and a moment later Edith began to doubt whether her senses had not
+played her a trick. A superstitious horror fell upon her; what she had
+seen was a spirit, not living flesh and blood. She knelt down by the
+stone, and remained for a long time with her face hidden upon her arms,
+and her hands clasped, sometimes praying, sometimes wondering and
+fearing. At last she rose to her feet, and hastened homeward through
+the increasing darkness. But before she had reached her house she had
+discovered that what she had seen was no ghost. The whole village was
+in a fever of excitement.
+
+Everybody was full of the story. An hour ago who should appear riding
+quietly up the village street but David Poindexter himself--at least,
+if it were not he, it was the devil. He seemed to take little notice of
+the astonished glances that were thrown at him, or, at any rate, not to
+understand them. Instead of going to the Lambert mansion, he had
+alighted at the inn, and asked the innkeeper whether he might have
+lodging there. But when the innkeeper, who had known the reverend
+gentleman as well as he knew his own sign-board, had addressed him by
+name, the other had shaken his head, seemed perplexed, and had affirmed
+that his name was not Poindexter but Lambert; and had added, upon
+further inquiry, that he was the only son of David Lambert, and was
+come to claim that gentleman's property, to which he was by law
+entitled; in proof whereof he had produced various documents, among
+them the certificates of his mother's marriage and of his own birth. As
+to David Poindexter, he declared that he knew not there was such a
+person; and although no man in his senses could be made to believe that
+David Poindexter and this so-called Lambert were twain, and not one and
+the same individual, the latter stoutly maintained his story, and vowed
+that the truth would sooner or later appear and confirm him. Meanwhile,
+however, one of his creditors had had him arrested for a debt of eight
+hundred pounds; and Harwood Courtney had seen him, and said that he was
+ready to pledge his salvation that the man was Poindexter and nobody
+else. So here the matter rested for the present. But who ever heard of
+so strange and audacious an attempt at imposition? The man had not even
+made any effort to disguise himself further than to put on a different
+suit of clothes and get another horse; and why, in the name of all that
+was inconceivable, had he come back to Witton, instead of going to any
+other part of the earth's surface  What could he expect here, except
+immediate detection, imprisonment, and ruin? Was he insane? He did not
+seem to be so; but that interpretation of his conduct was not only the
+most charitable one, but no other could be imagined that would account
+for the facts.
+
+Witton slept but little that night; but who shall describe its
+bewilderment when, early in the morning, a constable arrived in the
+village with the news that the dead body of the Reverend David
+Poindexter had been found in some woods about fifteen miles off, and
+that his bay mare had been picked up grazing along the roadside not far
+from home! Upon the heels of this intelligence came the corpse itself,
+lying in a country wagon, and the bay mare trotting behind. It was
+taken out and placed on the table in the inn parlor, where it
+immediately became the center of a crowd half crazy with curiosity and
+amazement. The cause of death was found to be the breaking of the
+vertebral column just at the base of the neck. There was no other
+injury on the body, and, allowing for the natural changes incident to
+death, the face was in every particular the face of David Poindexter.
+The man who called himself Lambert was now brought into the room, and
+made to stand beside the corpse, which he regarded with a certain calm
+interest. The resemblance between the two was minute and astonishing;
+it was found to be impossible, upon that evidence alone, to decide
+which was David Poindexter.
+
+The matter was brought to trial as promptly as possible. A great number
+of witnesses identified the prisoner as David Poindexter, but those who
+had seen the corpse mostly gave their evidence an opposite inclination;
+and four persons (one of them the gray-eyed gentleman who has been
+already mentioned) swore positively that the prisoner was Giovanni
+Lambert, the gray-eyed gentleman adding that he had once met
+Poindexter, and had confidently taken him to be Lambert.
+
+An attempt was then made to prove that Lambert had murdered Poindexter;
+but it entirely failed, there being no evidence that the two men had
+ever so much as met, and there being no conceivable motive for the
+murder. Lambert, therefore, was permitted to enter undisturbed upon his
+inheritance; for he had no difficulty in establishing the fact of the
+elder Lambert's marriage to an Italian woman twenty-three years before.
+The marriage had been a secret one, and soon after a violent quarrel
+had taken place between the wife and husband, and they had separated.
+The following month Giovanni was born prematurely. He had seen his
+father but once. The quarrel was never made up, but Lambert sent his
+wife, from time to time, money enough for her support. She had died
+about ten years ago, and had given her son the papers to establish his
+identity, telling him that the day would come to use them. Giovanni had
+been a soldier, fighting against the French in Spain and elsewhere, and
+had only heard of his father's death a few weeks ago. He had thereupon
+come to claim his own, with the singular results that we have seen.
+
+Here was the end of the case, so far as the law was concerned; but the
+real end of it is worth noting. Lambert, by his own voluntary act, paid
+all the legal debts contracted by Poindexter, and gave Courtney, in
+settlement of the gambling transaction, a sum of fifty thousand pounds.
+The remainder of his fortune, which was still considerable, he devoted
+almost entirely to charitable purposes, doing so much genuine good, in
+a manner so hearty and unassuming, that he became the object of more
+personal affection than falls to the lot of most philanthropists. He
+was of a quiet, sad, and retiring disposition, and uniformly very
+sparing of words. After a year or so, circumstances brought it about
+that he and Miss Saltine were associated in some benevolent enterprise,
+and from that time forward they often consulted together in such
+matters, Lambert making her the medium of many of his benefactions. Of
+course the gossips were ready to predict that it would end with a
+marriage; and indeed it was impossible to see the two together (though
+both of them, and especially Edith, had altered somewhat with the
+passage of years) without being reminded of the former love affair in
+which Lambert's double had been the hero. Did this also occur to Edith?
+It could hardly have been otherwise, and it would be interesting to
+speculate on her feelings in the matter; but I have only the story to
+tell. At all events, they never did marry, though they became very
+tender friends. At the end of seven years Colonel Saltine died of
+jaundice; he had been failing in his mind for some time previous, and
+had always addressed Lambert as Poindexter, and spoken of him as his
+son-in-law. The year following Lambert himself died, after a brief
+illness. He left all his property to Edith. She survived to her
+seventieth year, making it the business of her life to carry out his
+philanthropic schemes, and she always dressed in widows' weeds. After
+her death, the following passage was found in one of her private
+journals. It refers to her last interview with Lambert, on his death-
+bed:
+
+".... He smiled, and said, 'You will believe, now, that I was sincere
+in renouncing the ministry, though I have tried to serve the Lord in
+other ways than from the pulpit.' I felt a shock in my heart, and could
+hardly say, 'What do you mean, Mr. Lambert?' He replied, 'Surely,
+Edith, your soul knows, if your reason does not, that I am David
+Poindexter!' I could not speak. I hid my face in my hands. After a
+while, in separate sentences, he told me the truth. When he rode forth
+on that dreadful morning it was with the purpose to die. But he met on
+the road this Giovanni Lambert, who so marvelously resembled him, and
+they sat down together in the wood and talked, and Giovanni told him
+all the story of his life.... As Giovanni was about to mount his horse,
+which was very restive, he saw a violet in the grass, and stooped to
+pick it. The horse lashed out with its heels, and struck him in the
+back of the neck and killed him.... Then the idea came to David to
+exchange clothes with the dead man, and to take his papers, and
+personate him. Thus, he could escape from the individuality which was
+his curse, and find his true self, as it were, in another person. He
+said, too, that his greatest hope had been to win my love and make me
+his wife; but he found that he could not bring himself to attempt that,
+unless he confessed his falsehood to me, and he had feared that this
+confession would turn me from him forever. I wept, and told him that my
+heart had been his almost from the first, because I always thought of
+him as David, and that I would have loved him through all things. He
+said, 'Then God has been more merciful to me than I deserve; but,
+doubtless, it is also of His mercy that we have remained unmarried.'
+But I was in an agony, and could not yet be reconciled. At last he
+said, 'Will you kiss me, Edith?' and afterward he said, 'My wife!' and
+that was his last word. But we shall meet again!"
+
+
+
+
+KEN'S MYSTERY.
+
+
+One cool October evening--it was the last day of the month, and
+unusually cool for the time of year--I made up my mind to go and spend
+an hour or two with my friend Keningale. Keningale was an artist (as
+well as a musical amateur and poet), and had a very delightful studio
+built onto his house, in which he was wont to sit of an evening. The
+studio had a cavernous fire-place, designed in imitation of the old-
+fashioned fire-places of Elizabethan manor-houses, and in it, when the
+temperature out-doors warranted, he would build up a cheerful fire of
+dry logs. It would suit me particularly well, I thought, to go and have
+a quiet pipe and chat in front of that fire with my friend.
+
+I had not had such a chat for a very long time--not, in fact, since
+Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his
+visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the
+time, "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far
+as we knew him, was more likely to do anything else than to study. He
+was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his
+habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of
+twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play,
+scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and figure-
+pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any regular
+training in art; but he was not a worker. Personally he was fine-
+looking, of good height and figure, active, healthy, and with a
+remarkably fine brow, and clear, full-gazing eye. Nobody was surprised
+at his going to Europe, nobody expected him to do anything there except
+amuse himself, and few anticipated that he would be soon again seen in
+New York. He was one of the sort that find Europe agree with them. Off
+he went, therefore; and in the course of a few months the rumor reached
+us that he was engaged to a handsome and wealthy New York girl whom he
+had met in London. This was nearly all we did hear of him until, not
+very long afterward, he turned up again on Fifth Avenue, to every one's
+astonishment; made no satisfactory answer to those who wanted to know
+how he happened to tire so soon of the Old World; while, as to the
+reported engagement, he cut short all allusion to that in so peremptory
+a manner as to show that it was not a permissible topic of conversation
+with him. It was surmised that the lady had jilted him; but, on the
+other hand, she herself returned home not a great while after, and,
+though she had plenty of opportunities, she has never married to this
+day.
+
+Be the rights of that matter what they may, it was soon remarked that
+Ken was no longer the careless and merry fellow he used to be; on the
+contrary, he appeared grave, moody, averse from general society, and
+habitually taciturn and undemonstrative even in the company of his most
+intimate friends. Evidently something had happened to him, or he had
+done something. What? Had he committed a murder? or joined the
+Nihilists? or was his unsuccessful love affair at the bottom of it?
+Some declared that the cloud was only temporary, and would soon pass
+away. Nevertheless, up to the period of which I am writing, it had not
+passed away, but had rather gathered additional gloom, and threatened
+to become permanent.
+
+Meanwhile I had met him twice or thrice at the club, at the opera, or
+in the street, but had as yet had no opportunity of regularly renewing
+my acquaintance with him. We had been on a footing of more than common
+intimacy in the old days, and I was not disposed to think that he would
+refuse to renew the former relations now. But what I had heard and
+myself seen of his changed condition imparted a stimulating tinge of
+suspense or curiosity to the pleasure with which I looked forward to
+the prospects of this evening. His house stood at a distance of two or
+three miles beyond the general range of habitations in New York at this
+time, and as I walked briskly along in the clear twilight air I had
+leisure to go over in my mind all that I had known of Ken and had
+divined of his character. After all, had there not always been
+something in his nature--deep down, and held in abeyance by the
+activity of his animal spirits--but something strange and separate, and
+capable of developing under suitable conditions into--into what? As I
+asked myself this question I arrived at his door; and it was with a
+feeling of relief that I felt the next moment the cordial grasp of his
+hand, and his voice bidding me welcome in a tone that indicated
+unaffected gratification at my presence. He drew me at once into the
+studio, relieved me of my hat and cane, and then put his hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+"I am glad to see you," he repeated, with singular earnestness--"glad
+to see you and to feel you; and to-night of all nights in the year."
+
+"Why to-night especially?"
+
+"Oh, never mind. It's just as well, too, you didn't let me know
+beforehand you were coming; the unreadiness is all, to paraphrase the
+poet. Now, with you to help me, I can drink a glass of whisky and water
+and take a bit draw of the pipe. This would have been a grim night for
+me if I'd been left to myself."
+
+"In such a lap of luxury as this, too!" said I, looking round at the
+glowing fire-place, the low, luxurious chairs, and all the rich and
+sumptuous fittings of the room. "I should have thought a condemned
+murderer might make himself comfortable here."
+
+"Perhaps; but that's not exactly my category at present. But have you
+forgotten what night this is? This is November-eve, when, as tradition
+asserts, the dead arise and walk about, and fairies, goblins, and
+spiritual beings of all kinds have more freedom and power than on any
+other day of the year. One can see you've never been in Ireland."
+
+"I wasn't aware till now that you had been there, either."
+
+"Yes, I have been in Ireland. Yes--" He paused, sighed, and fell into a
+reverie, from which, however, he soon roused himself by an effort, and
+went to a cabinet in a corner of the room for the liquor and tobacco.
+While he was thus employed I sauntered about the studio, taking note of
+the various beauties, grotesquenesses, and curiosities that it
+contained. Many things were there to repay study and arouse admiration;
+for Ken was a good collector, having excellent taste as well as means
+to back it. But, upon the whole, nothing interested me more than some
+studies of a female head, roughly done in oils, and, judging from the
+sequestered positions in which I found them, not intended by the artist
+for exhibition or criticism. There were three or four of these studies,
+all of the same face, but in different poses and costumes. In one the
+head was enveloped in a dark hood, overshadowing and partly concealing
+the features; in another she seemed to be peering duskily through a
+latticed casement, lit by a faint moonlight; a third showed her
+splendidly attired in evening costume, with jewels in her hair and
+cars, and sparkling on her snowy bosom. The expressions were as various
+as the poses; now it was demure penetration, now a subtle inviting
+glance, now burning passion, and again a look of elfish and elusive
+mockery. In whatever phase, the countenance possessed a singular and
+poignant fascination, not of beauty merely, though that was very
+striking, but of character and quality likewise.
+
+"Did you find this model abroad?" I inquired at length. "She has
+evidently inspired yon, and I don't wonder at it."
+
+Ken, who had been mixing the punch, and had not noticed my movements,
+now looked up, and said: "I didn't mean those to be seen. They don't
+satisfy me, and I am going to destroy them; but I couldn't rest till
+I'd made some attempts to reproduce--What was it you asked? Abroad?
+Yes--or no. They were all painted here within the last six weeks."
+
+'"Whether they satisfy you or not, they are by far the best things of
+yours I have ever seen."
+
+'"Well, let them alone, and tell me what you think of this beverage. To
+my thinking, it goes to the right spot. It owes its existence to your
+coming here. I can't drink alone, and those portraits are not company,
+though, for aught I know, she might have come out of the canvas to-
+night and sat down in that chair." Then, seeing my inquiring look, he
+added, with a hasty laugh, "It's November-eve, you know, when anything
+may happen, provided its strange enough. Well, here's to ourselves."
+
+We each swallowed a deep draught of the smoking and aromatic liquor,
+and set down our glasses with approval. The punch was excellent. Ken
+now opened a box of cigars, and we seated ourselves before the fire-
+place.
+
+"All we need now," I remarked, after a short silence, "is a little
+music. By-the-by, Ken, have you still got the banjo I gave you before
+you went abroad?"
+
+He paused so long before replying that I supposed he had not heard my
+question. "I have got it," he said, at length, "but it will never make
+any more music."
+
+"Got broken, eh? Can't it be mended? It was a fine instrument."
+
+"It's not broken, but it's past mending. You shall see for yourself."
+
+He arose as he spoke, and going to another part of the studio, opened a
+black oak coffer, and took out of it a long object wrapped up in a
+piece of faded yellow silk. He handed it to me, and when I had
+unwrapped it, there appeared a thing that might once have been a banjo,
+but had little resemblance to one now. It bore every sign of extreme
+age. The wood of the handle was honeycombed with the gnawings of worms,
+and dusty with dry-rot. The parchment head was green with mold, and
+hung in shriveled tatters. The hoop, which was of solid silver, was so
+blackened and tarnished that it looked like dilapidated iron. The
+strings were gone, and most of the tuning-screws had dropped out of
+their decayed sockets. Altogether it had the appearance of having been
+made before the Flood, and been forgotten in the forecastle of Noah's
+Ark ever since.
+
+"It is a curious relic, certainly," I said. "Where did you come across
+it? I had no idea that the banjo was invented so long ago as this. It
+certainly can't be less than two hundred years old, and may be much
+older than that."
+
+Ken smiled gloomily. "You are quite right," lie said; "it is at least
+two hundred years old, and yet it is the very same banjo that you gave
+me a year ago."
+
+"Hardly," I returned, smiling in my turn, "since that was made to my
+order with a view to presenting it to you."
+
+"I know that; but the two hundred years have passed since then. Yes; it
+is absurd and impossible, I know, but nothing is truer. That banjo,
+which was made last year, existed in the sixteenth century, and has
+been rotting ever since. Stay. Give it to me a moment, and I'll
+convince you. You recollect that your name and mine, with the date,
+were engraved on the silver hoop?"
+
+"Yes; and there was a private mark of my own there, also."
+
+"Very well," said Ken, who had been rubbing a place on the hoop with a
+corner of the yellow silk wrapper; "look at that."
+
+I took the decrepit instrument from him, and examined the spot which he
+had rubbed. It was incredible, sure enough; but there were the names
+and the date precisely as I had caused them to be engraved; and there,
+moreover, was my own private mark, which I had idly made with an old
+etching point not more than eighteen months before. After convincing
+myself that there was no mistake, I laid the banjo across my knees, and
+stared at my friend in bewilderment. He sat smoking with a kind of grim
+composure, his eyes fixed upon the blazing logs.
+
+"I'm mystified, I confess," said I. "Come; what is the joke? What
+method have you discovered of producing the decay of centuries on this
+unfortunate banjo in a few months? And why did you do it? I have heard
+of an elixir to counteract the effects of time, but your recipe seems
+to work the other way--to make time rush forward at two hundred times
+his usual rate, in one place, while he jogs on at his usual gait
+elsewhere. Unfold your mystery, magician. Seriously, Ken, how on earth
+did the thing happen?"
+
+"I know no more about it than you do," was his reply. "Either you and I
+and all the rest of the living world are insane, or else there has been
+wrought a miracle as strange as any in tradition. How can I explain it?
+It is a common saying--a common experience, if you will--that we may,
+on certain trying or tremendous occasions, live years in one moment.
+But that's a mental experience, not a physical one, and one that
+applies, at all events, only to human beings, not to senseless things
+of wood and metal. You imagine the thing is some trick or jugglery. If
+it be, I don't know the secret of it. There's no chemical appliance
+that I ever heard of that will get a piece of solid wood into that
+condition in a few months, or a few years. And it wasn't done in a few
+years, or a few months either. A year ago today at this very hour that
+banjo was as sound as when it left the maker's hands, and twenty-four
+hours afterward--I'm telling you the simple truth--it was as you see it
+now."
+
+The gravity and earnestness with which Ken made this astounding
+statement were evidently not assumed, He believed every word that he
+uttered. I knew not what to think. Of course my friend might be insane,
+though he betrayed none of the ordinary symptoms of mania; but, however
+that might be, there was the banjo, a witness whose silent testimony
+there was no gainsaying. The more I meditated on the matter the more
+inconceivable did it appear. Two hundred years--twenty-four hours;
+these were the terms of the proposed equation. Ken and the banjo both
+affirmed that the equation had been made; all worldly knowledge and
+experience affirmed it to be impossible. "What was the explanation?
+What is time? What is life? I felt myself beginning to doubt the
+reality of all things. And so this was the mystery which my friend had
+been brooding over since his return from abroad. No wonder it had
+changed him. More to be wondered at was it that it had not changed him
+more.
+
+"Can you tell me the whole story?" I demanded at length.
+
+Ken quaffed another draught from his glass of whisky and water and
+rubbed his hand through his thick brown beard. "I have never spoken to
+any one of it heretofore," he said, "and I had never meant to speak of
+it. But I'll try and give you some idea of what it was. You know me
+better than any one else; you'll understand the thing as far as it can
+ever be understood, and perhaps I may be relieved of some of the
+oppression it has caused me. For it is rather a ghastly memory to
+grapple with alone, I can tell you."
+
+Hereupon, without further preface, Ken related the following tale. He
+was, I may observe in passing, a naturally fine narrator. There were
+deep, lingering tones in his voice, and he could strikingly enhance the
+comic or pathetic effect of a sentence by dwelling here and there upon
+some syllable. His features were equally susceptible of humorous and of
+solemn expressions, and his eyes were in form and hue wonderfully
+adapted to showing great varieties of emotion. Their mournful aspect
+was extremely earnest and affecting; and when Ken was giving utterance
+to some mysterious passage of the tale they had a doubtful, melancholy,
+exploring look which appealed irresistibly to the imagination. But the
+interest of his story was too pressing to allow of noticing these
+incidental embellishments at the time, though they doubtless had their
+influence upon me all the same.
+
+"I left New York on an Inman Line steamer, you remember," began Ken,
+"and landed at Havre. I went the usual round of sight-seeing on the
+Continent, and got round to London in July, at the height of the
+season. I had good introductions, and met any number of agreeable and
+famous people. Among others was a young lady, a countrywoman of my own
+--you know whom I mean--who interested me very much, and before her
+family left London she and I were engaged. We parted there for the
+time, because she had the Continental trip still to make, while I
+wanted to take the opportunity to visit the north of England and
+Ireland. I landed at Dublin about the 1st of October, and, zigzagging
+about the country, I found myself in County Cork about two weeks later.
+
+"There is in that region some of the most lovely scenery that human
+eyes ever rested on, and it seems to be less known to tourists than
+many places of infinitely less picturesque value. A lonely region too:
+during my rambles I met not a single stranger like myself, and few
+enough natives. It seems incredible that so beautiful a country should
+be so deserted. After walking a dozen Irish miles you come across a
+group of two or three one-roomed cottages, and, like as not, one or
+more of those will have the roof off and the walls in ruins. The few
+peasants whom one sees, however, are affable and hospitable, especially
+when they hear you are from that terrestrial heaven whither most of
+their friends and relatives have gone before them. They seem simple and
+primitive enough at first sight, and yet they are as strange and
+incomprehensible a race as any in the world. They are as superstitious,
+as credulous of marvels, fairies, magicians, and omens, as the men whom
+St. Patrick preached to, and at the same time they are shrewd,
+skeptical, sensible, and bottomless liars. Upon the whole, I met with
+no nation on my travels whose company I enjoyed so much, or who
+inspired me with so much kindliness, curiosity, and repugnance.
+
+"At length I got to a place on the sea-coast, which I will not further
+specify than to say that it is not many miles from Ballymacheen, on the
+south shore. I have seen Venice and Naples, I have driven along the
+Cornice Road, I have spent a month at our own Mount Desert, and I say
+that all of them together are not so beautiful as this glowing, deep-
+hued, soft-gleaming, silvery-lighted, ancient harbor and town, with the
+tall hills crowding round it and the black cliffs and headlands
+planting their iron feet in the blue, transparent sea. It is a very old
+place, and has had a history which it has outlived ages since. It may
+once have had two or three thousand inhabitants; it has scarce five or
+six hundred to day. Half the houses are in ruins or have disappeared;
+many of the remainder are standing empty. All the people are poor, most
+of them abjectly so; they saunter about with bare feet and uncovered
+heads, the women in quaint black or dark-blue cloaks, the men in such
+anomalous attire as only an Irishman knows how to get together, the
+children half naked. The only comfortable-looking people are the monks
+and the priests, and the soldiers in the fort. For there is a fort
+there, constructed on the huge ruins of one which may have done duty in
+the reign of Edward the Black Prince, or earlier, in whose mossy
+embrasures are mounted a couple of cannon, which occasionally sent a
+practice-shot or two at the cliff on the other side of the harbor. The
+garrison consists of a dozen men and three or four officers and non-
+commissioned officers. I suppose they are relieved occasionally, but
+those I saw seemed to have become component parts of their
+surroundings.
+
+"I put up at a wonderful little old inn, the only one in the place, and
+took my meals in a dining-saloon fifteen feet by nine, with a portrait
+of George I (a print varnished to preserve it) hanging over the mantel-
+piece. On the second evening after dinner a young gentleman came in--
+the dining-saloon being public property of course--and ordered some
+bread and cheese and a bottle of Dublin stout. We presently fell into
+talk; he turned out to be an officer from the fort, Lieutenant
+O'Connor, and a fine young specimen of the Irish soldier he was. After
+telling me all he knew about the town, the surrounding country, his
+friends, and himself, he intimated a readiness to sympathize with
+whatever tale I might choose to pour into his ear; and I had pleasure
+in trying to rival his own outspokenness. We became excellent friends;
+we had up a half-pint of Kinahan's whisky, and the lieutenant expressed
+himself in terms of high praise of my countrymen, my country, and my
+own particular cigars. When it became time for him to depart I
+accompanied him--for there was a splendid moon abroad--and bade him
+farewell at the fort entrance, having promised to come over the next
+day and make the acquaintance of the other fellows. 'And mind your eye,
+now, going back, my dear boy,' he called out, as I turned my face
+homeward. 'Faith, 'tis a spooky place, that graveyard, and you'll as
+likely meet the black woman there as anywhere else!'
+
+"The graveyard was a forlorn and barren spot on the hill-side, just the
+hither side of the fort: thirty or forty rough head-stones, few of
+which retained any semblance of the perpendicular, while many were so
+shattered and decayed as to seem nothing more than irregular natural
+projections from the ground. Who the black woman might be I knew not,
+and did not stay to inquire. I had never been subject to ghostly
+apprehensions, and as a matter of fact, though the path I had to follow
+was in places very bad going, not to mention a hap-hazard scramble over
+a ruined bridge that covered a deep-lying brook, I reached my inn
+without any adventure whatever.
+
+"The next day I kept my appointment at the fort, and found no reason to
+regret it; and my friendly sentiments were abundantly reciprocated,
+thanks more especially, perhaps, to the success of my banjo, which I
+carried with me, and which was as novel as it was popular with those
+who listened to it. The chief personages in the social circle besides
+my friend the lieutenant were Major Molloy, who was in command, a racy
+and juicy old campaigner, with a face like a sunset, and the surgeon,
+Dr. Dudeen, a long, dry, humorous genius, with a wealth of anecdotical
+and traditional lore at his command that I have never seen surpassed.
+We had a jolly time of it, and it was the precursor of many more like
+it. The remains of October slipped away rapidly, and I was obliged to
+remember that I was a traveler in Europe, and not a resident in
+Ireland. The major, the surgeon, and the lieutenant all protested
+cordially against my proposed departure, but, as there was no help for
+it, they arranged a farewell dinner to take place in the fort on All-
+halloween.
+
+"I wish you could have been at that dinner with me! It was the essence
+of Irish good-fellowship. Dr. Dudeen was in great force; the major was
+better than the best of Lever's novels; the lieutenant was overflowing
+with hearty good-humor, merry chaff, and sentimental rhapsodies anent
+this or the other pretty girl of the neighborhood. For my part I made
+the banjo ring as it had never rung before, and the others joined in
+the chorus with a mellow strength of lungs such as you don't often hear
+outside of Ireland. Among the stories that Dr. Dudeen regaled us with
+was one about the Kern of Querin and his wife, Ethelind Fionguala--
+which being interpreted signifies 'the white-shouldered.' The lady, it
+appears, was originally betrothed to one O'Connor (here the lieutenant
+smacked his lips), but was stolen away on the wedding night by a party
+of vampires, who, it would seem, were at that period a prominent
+feature among the troubles of Ireland. But as they were bearing her
+along--she being unconscious--to that supper where she was not to eat
+but to be eaten, the young Kern of Querin, who happened to be out duck-
+shooting, met the party, and emptied his gun at it. The vampires fled,
+and the Kern carried the fair lady, still in a state of insensibility,
+to his house. 'And by the same token, Mr. Keningale,' observed the
+doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, 'ye're after passing that
+very house on your way here. The one with the dark archway underneath
+it, and the big mullioned window at the corner, ye recollect, hanging
+over the street as I might say--'
+
+"'Go 'long wid the house, Dr. Dudeen, dear,' interrupted the
+lieutenant; 'sure can't you see we're all dying to know what happened
+to sweet Miss Fionguala, God be good to her, when I was after getting
+her safe up-stairs--'
+
+"'Faith, then, I can tell ye that myself, Mr. O'Connor,' exclaimed the
+major, imparting a rotary motion to the remnants of whisky in his
+tumbler. ''Tis a question to be solved on general principles, as
+Colonel O'Halloran said that time he was asked what he'd do if he'd
+been the Book o' Wellington, and the Prussians hadn't come up in the
+nick o' time at Waterloo. 'Faith,' says the colonel, 'I'll tell ye--'
+
+"'Arrah, then, major, why would ye be interruptin' the doctor, and Mr.
+Keningale there lettin' his glass stay empty till he hears--The Lord
+save us! the bottle's empty!'
+
+"In the excitement consequent upon this discovery, the thread of the
+doctor's story was lost; and before it could be recovered the evening
+had advanced so far that I felt obliged to withdraw. It took some time
+to make my proposition heard and comprehended; and a still longer time
+to put it in execution; so that it was fully midnight before I found
+myself standing in the cool pure air outside the fort, with the
+farewells of my boon companions ringing in my ears.
+
+"Considering that it had been rather a wet evening in-doors, I was in a
+remarkably good state of preservation, and I therefore ascribed it
+rather to the roughness of the road than to the smoothness of the
+liquor, when, after advancing a few rods, I stumbled and fell. As I
+picked myself up I fancied I had heard a laugh, and supposed that the
+lieutenant, who had accompanied me to the gate, was making merry over
+my mishap; but on looking round I saw that the gate was closed and no
+one was visible. The laugh, moreover, had seemed to be close at hand,
+and to be even pitched in a key that was rather feminine than
+masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my
+imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than
+poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of
+disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble
+is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I
+remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I
+was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my way
+immediately.
+
+"But the path was singularly difficult to find, or rather the path I
+was following did not seem to be the right one. I did not recognize it;
+I could have sworn (except I knew the contrary) that I had never seen
+it before. The moon had risen, though her light was as yet obscured by
+clouds, but neither my immediate surroundings nor the general aspect of
+the region appeared familiar. Dark, silent hill-sides mounted up on
+either hand, and the road, for the most part, plunged downward, as if
+to conduct me into the bowels of the earth. The place was alive with
+strange echoes, so that at times I seemed to be walking through the
+midst of muttering voices and mysterious whispers, and a wild, faint
+sound of laughter seemed ever and anon to reverberate among the passes
+of the hills. Currents of colder air sighing up through narrow defiles
+and dark crevices touched my face as with airy fingers. A certain
+feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to take possession of me,
+though there was no definable cause for it, unless that I might be
+belated in getting home. With the perverse instinct of those who are
+lost I hastened my steps, but was impelled now and then to glance back
+over my shoulder, with a sensation of being pursued. But no living
+creature was in sight. The moon, however, had now risen higher, and the
+clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked
+valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked
+like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms.
+
+"How long I had been hurrying onward I know not, when, with a kind of
+suddenness, I found myself approaching a graveyard. It was situated on
+the spur of a hill, and there was no fence around it, nor anything to
+protect it from the incursions of passers-by. There was something in
+the general appearance of this spot that made me half fancy I had seen
+it before; and I should have taken it to be the same that I had often
+noticed on my way to the fort, but that the latter was only a few
+hundred yards distant therefrom, whereas I must have traversed several
+miles at least. As I drew near, moreover, I observed that the head-
+stones did not appear so ancient and decayed as those of the other. But
+what chiefly attracted my attention was the figure that was leaning or
+half sitting upon one of the largest of the upright slabs near the
+road. It was a female figure draped in black, and a closer inspection--
+for I was soon within a few yards of her--showed that she wore the
+calla, or long hooded cloak, the most common as well as the most
+ancient garment of Irish women, and doubtless of Spanish origin.
+
+"I was a trifle startled by this apparition, so unexpected as it was,
+and so strange did it seem that any human creature should be at that
+hour of the night in so desolate and sinister a place. Involuntarily I
+paused as I came opposite her, and gazed at her intently. But the
+moonlight fell behind her, and the deep hood of her cloak so completely
+shadowed her face that I was unable to discern anything but the sparkle
+of a pair of eyes, which appeared to be returning my gaze with much
+vivacity.
+
+"'You seem to be at home here,' I said, at length. 'Can you tell me
+where I am?'
+
+"Hereupon the mysterious personage broke into a light laugh, which,
+though in itself musical and agreeable, was of a timbre and intonation
+that caused my heart to beat rather faster than my late pedestrian
+exertions warranted; for it was the identical laugh (or so my
+imagination persuaded me) that had echoed in my ears as I arose from my
+tumble an hour or two ago. For the rest, it was the laugh of a young
+woman, and presumably of a pretty one; and yet it had a wild, airy,
+mocking quality, that seemed hardly human at all, or not, at any rate,
+characteristic of a being of affections and limitations like unto ours.
+But this impression of mine was fostered, no doubt, by the unusual and
+uncanny circumstances of the occasion.
+
+"'Sure, sir,' said she, 'you're at the grave of Ethelind Fionguala.'
+
+"As she spoke she rose to her feet, and pointed to the inscription on
+the stone. I bent forward, and was able, without much difficulty, to
+decipher the name, and a date which indicated that the occupant of the
+grave must have entered the disembodied state between two and three
+centuries ago.
+
+"'And who are you?' was my next question.
+
+"'I'm called Elsie,' she replied. 'But where would your honor be going
+November-eve?'
+
+"I mentioned my destination, and asked her whether she could direct me
+thither.
+
+"'Indeed, then, 'tis there I'm going myself,' Elsie replied; 'and if
+your honor'll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument,
+'tisn't long we'll be on the road.'
+
+"She pointed to the banjo which I carried wrapped up under my arm. How
+she knew that it was a musical instrument I could not imagine;
+possibly, I thought, she may have seen me playing on it as I strolled
+about the environs of the town. Be that as it may, I offered no
+opposition to the bargain, and further intimated that I would reward
+her more substantially on our arrival. At that she laughed again, and
+made a peculiar gesture with her hand above her head. I uncovered my
+banjo, swept my fingers across the strings, and struck into a fantastic
+dance-measure, to the music of which we proceeded along the path, Elsie
+slightly in advance, her feet keeping time to the airy measure. In
+fact, she trod so lightly, with an elastic, undulating movement, that
+with a little more it seemed as if she might float onward like a
+spirit. The extreme whiteness of her feet attracted my eye, and I was
+surprised to find that instead of being bare, as I had supposed, these
+were incased in white satin slippers quaintly embroidered with gold
+thread.
+
+"'Elsie,' said I, lengthening my steps so as to come up with her,
+'where do you live, and what do you do for a living?'
+
+"'Sure, I live by myself,' she answered; 'and if you'd be after knowing
+how, you must come and see for yourself.'
+
+"'Are you in the habit of walking over the hills at night in shoes like
+that?'
+
+"'And why would I not?' she asked, in her turn. 'And where did your
+honor get the pretty gold ring on your finger?'
+
+"The ring, which was of no great intrinsic value, had struck my eye in
+an old curiosity-shop in Cork. It was an antique of very old-fashioned
+design, and might have belonged (as the vender assured me was the case)
+to one of the early kings or queens of Ireland.
+
+"'Do you like it?' said I.
+
+"'Will your honor be after making a present of it to Elsie?' she
+returned, with an insinuating tone and turn of the head.
+
+"'Maybe I will, Elsie, on one condition. I am an artist; I make
+pictures of people. If you will promise to come to my studio and let me
+paint your portrait, I'll give you the ring, and some money besides.'
+
+"'And will you give me the ring now?' said Elsie.
+
+"'Yes, if you'll promise.'
+
+"'And will you play the music to me?' she continued.
+
+"'As much as you like.'
+
+"'But maybe I'll not be handsome enough for ye,' said she, with a
+glance of her eyes beneath the dark hood.
+
+"'I'll take the risk of that,' I answered, laughing, 'though, all the
+same, I don't mind taking a peep beforehand to remember you by.' So
+saying, I put forth a hand to draw back the concealing hood. But Elsie
+eluded me, I scarce know how, and laughed a third time, with the same
+airy, mocking cadence.
+
+"'Give me the ring first, and then you shall see me,' she said,
+coaxingly.
+
+"'Stretch out your hand, then,' returned I, removing the ring from my
+finger. 'When we are better acquainted, Elsie, you won't be so
+suspicious.'
+
+"She held out a slender, delicate hand, on the forefinger of which I
+slipped the ring. As I did so, the folds of her cloak fell a little
+apart, affording me a glimpse of a white shoulder and of a dress that
+seemed in that deceptive semi-darkness to be wrought of rich and costly
+material; and I caught, too, or so I fancied, the frosty sparkle of
+precious stones.
+
+"'Arrah, mind where ye tread!' said Elsie, in a sudden, sharp tone.
+
+"I looked round, and became aware for the first time that we were
+standing near the middle of a ruined bridge which spanned a rapid
+stream that flowed at a considerable depth below. The parapet of the
+bridge on one side was broken down, and I must have been, in fact, in
+imminent danger of stepping over into empty air. I made my way
+cautiously across the decaying structure; but, when I turned to assist
+Elsie, she was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"What had become of the girl? I called, but no answer came. I gazed
+about on every side, but no trace of her was visible. Unless she had
+plunged into the narrow abyss at my feet, there was no place where she
+could have concealed herself--none at least that I could discover. She
+had vanished, nevertheless; and since her disappearance must have been
+premeditated, I finally came to the conclusion that it was useless to
+attempt to find her. She would present herself again in her own good
+time, or not at all. She had given me the slip very cleverly, and I
+must make the best of it. The adventure was perhaps worth the ring.
+
+"On resuming my way, I was not a little relieved to find that I once
+more knew where I was. The bridge that I had just crossed was none
+other than the one I mentioned some time back; I was within a mile of
+the town, and my way lay clear before me. The moon, moreover, had now
+quite dispersed the clouds, and shone down with exquisite brilliance.
+Whatever her other failings, Elsie had been a trustworthy guide; she
+had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world
+again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it
+with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming
+snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what
+light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie
+was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred
+several times before I reached the outskirts of the town--the tread of
+an airy foot behind or beside my own. The fancy did not make me
+nervous; on the contrary, I was pleased with the notion of being thus
+haunted, and gave myself up to a romantic and genial vein of reverie.
+
+"After passing one or two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered
+the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This
+street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the
+wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the
+northern side. The house was built of stone, and in a noble style of
+architecture; it reminded me somewhat of certain palaces of the old
+Italian nobility that I had seen on the Continent, and it may very
+probably have been built by one of the Italian or Spanish immigrants of
+the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The molding of the projecting
+windows and arched doorway was richly carved, and upon the front of the
+building was an escutcheon wrought in high relief, though I could not
+make out the purport of the device. The moonlight falling upon this
+picturesque pile enhanced all its beauties, and at the same time made
+it seem like a vision that might dissolve away when the light ceased to
+shine. I must often have seen the house before, and yet I retained no
+definite recollection of it; I had never until now examined it with my
+eyes open, so to speak. Leaning against the wall on the opposite side
+of the street, I contemplated it for a long while at my leisure. The
+window at the corner was really a very fine and massive affair. It
+projected over the pavement below, throwing a heavy shadow aslant; the
+frames of the diamond-paned lattices were heavily mullioned. How often
+in past ages had that lattice been pushed open by some fair hand,
+revealing to a lover waiting beneath in the moonlight the charming
+countenance of his high-born mistress! Those were brave days. They had
+passed away long since. The great house had stood empty for who could
+tell how many years; only bats and vermin were its inhabitants. Where
+now were those who had built it? and who were they? Probably the very
+name of them was forgotten.
+
+"As I continued to stare upward, however, a conjecture presented itself
+to my mind which rapidly ripened into a conviction. Was not this the
+house that Dr. Dudeen had described that very evening as having been
+formerly the abode of the Kern of Querin and his mysterious bride?
+There was the projecting window, the arched doorway. Yes, beyond a
+doubt this was the very house. I emitted a low exclamation of renewed
+interest and pleasure, and my speculations took a still more
+imaginative, but also a more definite turn.
+
+"What had been the fate of that lovely lady after the Kern had brought
+her home insensible in his arms? Did she recover, and were they married
+and made happy ever after; or had the sequel been a tragic one? I
+remembered to have read that the victims of vampires generally became
+vampires themselves. Then my thoughts went back to that grave on the
+hill-side. Surely that was unconsecrated ground. Why had they buried
+her there? Ethelind of the white shoulder! Ah! why had not I lived in
+those days; or why might not some magic cause them to live again for
+me? Then would I seek this street at midnight, and standing here
+beneath her window, I would lightly touch the strings of my bandore
+until the casement opened cautiously and she looked down. A sweet
+vision indeed! And what prevented my realizing it? Only a matter of a
+couple of centuries or so. And was time, then, at which poets and
+philosophers sneer, so rigid and real a matter that a little faith and
+imagination might not overcome it? At all events, I had my banjo, the
+bandore's legitimate and lineal descendant, and the memory of Fionguala
+should have the love-ditty.
+
+"Hereupon, having retuned the instrument, I launched forth into an old
+Spanish love-song, which I had met with in some moldy library during my
+travels, and had set to music of my own. I sang low, for the deserted
+street re-echoed the lightest sound, and what I sang must reach only my
+lady's ears. The words were warm with the fire of the ancient Spanish
+chivalry, and I threw into their expression all the passion of the
+lovers of romance. Surely Fionguala, the white-shouldered, would hear,
+and awaken from her sleep of centuries, and come to the latticed
+casement and look down! Hist! see yonder! What light--what shadow is
+that that seems to flit from room to room within the abandoned house,
+and now approaches the mullioned window? Are my eyes dazzled by the
+play of the moonlight, or does the casement move--does it open? Nay,
+this is no delusion; there is no error of the senses here. There is
+simply a woman, young, beautiful, and richly attired, bending forward
+from the window, and silently beckoning me to approach.
+
+"Too much amazed to be conscious of amazement, I advanced until I stood
+directly beneath the casement, and the lady's face, as she stooped
+toward me, was not more than twice a man's height from my own. She
+smiled and kissed her finger-tips; something white fluttered in her
+hand, then fell through the air to the ground at my feet. The next
+moment she had withdrawn, and I heard the lattice close. I picked up
+what she had let fall; it was a delicate lace handkerchief,
+tied to the handle of an elaborately wrought bronze key. It was
+evidently the key of the house, and invited me to enter. I loosened it
+from the handkerchief, which bore a faint, delicious perfume, like the
+aroma of flowers in an ancient garden, and turned to the arched
+doorway. I felt no misgiving, and scarcely any sense of strangeness.
+All was as I had wished it to be, and as it should be; the mediaeval
+age was alive once more, and as for myself, I almost felt the velvet
+cloak hanging from my shoulder and the long rapier dangling at my belt.
+Standing in front of the door I thrust the key into the lock, turned
+it, and felt the bolt yield. The next instant the door was opened,
+apparently from within; I stepped across the threshold, the door closed
+again, and I was alone in the house, and in darkness.
+
+"Not alone, however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met
+by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself
+gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath;
+the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a
+dress close to me, and the same delicious perfume that had emanated
+from the handkerchief enriched the air that I breathed, while the
+little hand that clasped and was clasped by my own alternately
+tightened and half relaxed the hold of its soft cold fingers. In this
+manner, and treading lightly, we traversed what I presumed to be a
+long, irregular passageway, and ascended a staircase. Then another
+corridor, until finally we paused, a door opened, emitting a flood of
+soft light, into which we entered, still hand in hand. The darkness and
+the doubt were at an end.
+
+"The room was of imposing dimensions, and was furnished and decorated
+in a style of antique splendor. The walls were draped with mellow hues
+of tapestry; clusters of candles burned in polished silver sconces, and
+were reflected and multiplied in tall mirrors placed in the four
+corners of the room. The heavy beams of the dark oaken ceiling crossed
+each other in squares, and were laboriously carved; the curtains and
+the drapery of the chairs were of heavy-figured damask. At one end of
+the room was a broad ottoman, and in front of it a table, on which was
+set forth, in massive silver dishes, a sumptuous repast, with wines in
+crystal beakers. At the side was a vast and deep fire-place, with space
+enough on the broad hearth to burn whole trunks of trees. No fire,
+however, was there, but only a great heap of dead embers; and the room,
+for all its magnificence, was cold--cold as a tomb, or as my lady's
+hand--and it sent a subtle chill creeping to my heart.
+
+"But my lady! how fair she was! I gave but a passing glance at the
+room; my eyes and my thoughts were all for her. She was dressed in
+white, like a bride; diamonds sparkled in her dark hair and on her
+snowy bosom; her lovely face and slender lips were pale, and all the
+paler for the dusky glow of her eyes. She gazed at me with a strange,
+elusive smile; and yet there was, in her aspect and bearing, something
+familiar in the midst of strangeness, like the burden of a song heard
+long ago and recalled among other conditions and surroundings. It
+seemed to me that something in me recognized her and knew her, had
+known her always. She was the woman of whom I had dreamed, whom I had
+beheld in visions, whose voice and face had haunted me from boyhood up.
+Whether we had ever met before, as human beings meet, I knew not;
+perhaps I had been blindly seeking her all over the world, and she had
+been awaiting me in this splendid room, sitting by those dead embers
+until all the warmth had gone out of her blood, only to be restored by
+the heat with which my love might supply her.
+
+"'I thought you had forgotten me,' she said, nodding as if in answer to
+my thought. 'The night was so late--our one night of the year! How my
+heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so
+well! Kiss me--my lips are cold!'
+
+"Cold indeed they were--cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my
+own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and
+in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller
+breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that
+was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table
+and pointed to the viands and the wine.
+
+"'Eat and drink,' she said. 'You have traveled far, and you need food.'
+
+"'Will you eat and drink with me?' said I, pouring out the wine.
+
+"'You are the only nourishment I want,' was her answer.' This wine is
+thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I
+will drain a goblet to the dregs.'
+
+"At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She
+seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of
+the great room struck into me more and more.
+
+"She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and
+dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was
+she mocking mo when she implied that we had belonged to each other of
+old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her
+breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an
+antique ring.
+
+"'Where did you get that ring?' I demanded.
+
+"She shook her head and laughed. 'Have you been faithful?' she asked.
+'It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave
+me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern--the fairy ring,
+and I am your Ethelind--Ethelind Fionguala.'
+
+"'So be it,' I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding
+myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips.
+'You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours
+last.'
+
+"'You are mine, and I am yours,' she repeated, nodding her head with an
+elfish smile. 'Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again
+that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.'
+
+"We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously
+among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the
+music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing
+echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind
+Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes.
+She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame
+within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the
+last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can
+never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken,
+the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like
+the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself
+lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white
+shoulder."
+
+Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log
+upon the fire, and then continued:
+
+"I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in
+a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls,
+and heavy festoons of spiders' webs gray with dust covered the windows,
+which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with
+rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted
+through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly
+draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement,
+detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me,
+and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering
+noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily
+from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying,
+something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with
+a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo--as you see it
+now.
+
+"Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired;
+all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and
+haggard, and the chill--Ah, that chill," murmured Keningale, drawing
+nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth--"
+I shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave."
+
+
+
+
+"WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE."
+
+
+"What a beautiful girl!" said Mr. Ambrose Drayton to himself; "and how
+much she looks like--" He cut the comparison short, and turned his eyes
+seaward, pulling at his mustache meditatively the while.
+
+"This American atmosphere, fresh and pure as it is in the nostrils, is
+heavy-laden  with reminiscences," his thoughts ran on. "Reminiscences,
+but always with differences, the chief difference being, no doubt, in
+myself. And no wonder. Nineteen years; yes, it's positively nineteen
+years since I stood here and gazed out through yonder gap between the
+headlands. Nineteen years of foreign lands, foreign men and manners,
+the courts, the camps, the schools; adventure, business, and pleasure--
+if I may lightly use so mysterious a word. Nineteen and twenty are
+thirty-nine; in my case say sixty at least. Why, a girl like that
+lovely young thing walking away there with her light step and her
+innocent heart would take me to be sixty to a dead certainty. A rather
+well-preserved man of sixty--that's how she'd describe me to the young
+fellow she's given her heart to. Well, sixty or forty, what difference?
+When a man has passed the age at which he falls in love, he is the peer
+of Methuselah from that time forth. But what a fiery season that of
+love is while it lasts! Ay, and it burns something out of the soul that
+never grows again. And well that it should do so: a susceptible heart
+is a troublesome burden to lug round the world. Curious that I should
+be even thinking of such things: association, I suppose. Here it was
+that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then!
+A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky
+headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old
+farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with
+its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago,
+and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but
+meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and plank
+walks, and bridges, and bathing-houses, and pleasure-boats! And what an
+admirable concourse of well-dressed and pleasurably inclined men and
+women! After all, my countrymen are the finest-looking and most
+prosperous-appearing people on the globe. They have traveled a little
+faster than I have, and on a somewhat different track; but I would
+rather be among them than anywhere else. Yes, I won't go back to
+London, nor yet to Paris, or Calcutta, or Cairo. I'll buy a cottage
+here at Squittig Point, and live and die here and in New York. I wonder
+whether Mary is alive and mother of a dozen children, or--not!"
+
+"Auntie," said Miss Leithe to her relative, as they regained the
+veranda of their cottage after their morning stroll on the beach, "who
+was that gentleman who looked at us?"
+
+"Hey?--who?" inquired the widow of the late Mr. Corwin, absently.
+
+"The one in the thin gray suit and Panama hat; you must have seen him.
+A very distinguished-looking man and yet very simple and pleasant;
+like some of those nice middle-aged men that you see in 'Punch,'
+slenderly built, with handsome chin and eyes, and thick mustache and
+whiskers. Oh, auntie, why do you never notice things? I think a man
+between forty and fifty is ever so much nicer than when they're
+younger. They know how to be courteous, and they're not afraid of being
+natural. I mean this one looks as if he would. But he must be somebody
+remarkable in some way--don't you think so? There's something about
+him--something graceful and gentle and refined and manly--that makes
+most other men seem common beside him. Who do you suppose he can be?"
+
+"Who?--what have you been saying, my dear?" inquired Aunt Corwin,
+rousing herself from the perusal of a letter. "Here's Sarah writes that
+Frank Redmond was to sail from Havre the 20th; so he won't be here for
+a week or ten days yet."
+
+"Well, he might not have come at all," said the girl, coloring
+slightly. "I'm sure I didn't think he would, when he went away."
+
+"You are both of you a year older and wiser," said the widow,
+meditatively; "and you have learned, I hope, not to irritate a man
+needlessly. I never irritated Corwin in all my life. They don't
+understand it."
+
+"Here comes Mr. Haymaker," observed Miss Leithe. "I shall ask him."
+
+"Don't ask him in," said Mrs. Corwin, retiring; "he chatters like an
+organ-grinder."
+
+"Oh, good-morning, Miss Mary!" exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, as he mounted
+the steps of the veranda, with his hands extended and his customary
+effusion. "How charming you are looking after your bath and your walk
+and all! Did you ever see such a charming morning? I never was at a
+place I liked so much as Squittig Point; the new Newport, I call it--
+eh? the new Newport. So fashionable already, and only been going, as
+one might say, three or four years! Such charming people here! Oh, by-
+the-way, whom do you think I ran across just now? You wouldn't know
+him, though--been abroad since before you were born, I should think.
+Most charming man I ever met, and awfully wealthy. Ran across him in
+Europe--Paris, I think it was--stop! or was it Vienna? Well, never
+mind. Drayton, that's his name; ever hear of him? Ambrose Drayton. Made
+a great fortune in the tea-trade; or was it in the mines? I've
+forgotten. Well, no matter. Great traveler, too--Africa and the Corea,
+and all that sort of thing; and fought under Garibaldi, they say; and
+he had the charge of some diplomatic affair at Pekin once. The
+quietest, most gentlemanly fellow you ever saw. Oh, you must meet him.
+He's come back to stay, and will probably spend the summer here. I'll
+get him and introduce him. Oh, he'll be charmed--we all shall."
+
+"What sort of a looking person is he?" Miss Leithe inquired.
+
+"Oh, charming--just right! Trifle above medium height; rather lighter
+weight than I am, but graceful; grayish hair, heavy mustache, blue
+eyes; style of a retired English colonel, rather. You know what I mean
+--trifle reticent, but charming manners. Stop! there he goes now--see
+him? Just stopping to light a cigar--in a line with the light-house.
+Now he's thrown away the match, and walking on again. That's Ambrose
+Drayton. Introduce him on the sands this afternoon. How is your good
+aunt to-day? So sorry not to have seen her! Well, I must be off;
+awfully busy to-day. Good-by, my dear Miss Mary; see you this
+afternoon. Good-by. Oh, make my compliments to your good aunt, won't
+you? Thanks. So charmed! _Au revoir_."
+
+"Has that fool gone?" demanded a voice from within.
+
+"Yes, Auntie," the young lady answered.
+
+"Then come in to your dinner," the voice rejoined, accompanied by the
+sound of a chair being drawn up to a table and sat down upon. Mary
+Leithe, after casting a glance after the retreating figure of Mr.
+Haymaker and another toward the light-house, passed slowly through the
+wire-net doors and disappeared.
+
+Mr. Drayton had perforce engaged his accommodations at the hotel, all
+the cottages being either private property or rented, and was likewise
+constrained, therefore, to eat his dinner in public. But Mr. Drayton
+was not a hater of his species, nor a fearer of it; and though he had
+not acquired precisely our American habits and customs, he was disposed
+to be as little strange to them as possible. Accordingly, when the gong
+sounded, he entered the large dining-room with great intrepidity. The
+arrangement of tables was not continuous, but many small tables,
+capable of accommodating from two to six, were dotted about everywhere.
+Mr. Drayton established himself at the smallest of them, situated in a
+part of the room whence he had a view not only of the room itself, but
+of the blue sea and yellow rocks on the other side. This preliminary
+feat of generalship accomplished, he took a folded dollar bill from his
+pocket and silently held it up in the air, the result being the speedy
+capture of a waiter and the introduction of dinner.
+
+But at this juncture Mr. Haymaker came pitching into the room, as his
+nature was, and pinned himself to a standstill, as it were, with his
+eyeglass, in the central aisle of tables. Drayton at once gave himself
+up for lost, and therefore received Mr. Haymaker with kindness and
+serenity when, a minute or two later, he came plunging up, in his usual
+ecstasy of sputtering amiability, and seated himself in the chair at
+the other side of the table with an air as if everything were charming
+in the most charming of all possible worlds, and he himself the most
+charming person in it.
+
+"My dear Drayton, though," exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, in the interval
+between the soup and the bluefish, "there is some one here you must
+know--most charming girl you ever knew in your life, and has set her
+heart on knowing you. We were talking about you this morning--Miss Mary
+Leithe. Lovely name, too; pity ever to change it--he! he! he! Why, you
+must have seen her about here; has an old aunt, widow of Jim Corwin,
+who's dead and gone these five years. You recognize her, of course?"
+
+"Not as you describe her," said Mr. Drayton, helping his friend to
+fish.
+
+"Oh, the handsomest girl about here; tallish, wavy brown hair, soft
+brown eyes, the loveliest-shaped eyes in the world, my dear fellow;
+complexion like a Titian, figure slender yet, but promising. A way of
+giving you her hand that makes you wish she would take your heart,"
+pursued Mr. Haymaker, impetuously filling his mouth with bluefish,
+during the disposal of which he lost the thread of his harangue.
+Drayton, however, seemed disposed to recover it for him.
+
+"Is this young lady from New England?" he inquired.
+
+"New-Yorker by birth," responded the ever-vivacious Haymaker; "father a
+Southern man; mother a Bostonian. Father died eight or nine years after
+marriage; mother survived him six years; girl left in care of old Mrs.
+Corwin--good old creature, but vague--very vague. Don't fancy the
+marriage was a very fortunate one; a little friction, more or less.
+Leithe was rather a wild, unreliable sort of man; Mrs. Leithe a woman
+not easily influenced--immensely charming, though, and all that, but a
+trifle narrow and set. Well, you know, it was this way: Leithe was an
+immensely wealthy man when she married him; lost his money, struggled
+along, good deal of friction; Mrs. Leithe probably felt she had made a
+mistake, and that sort of thing. But Miss Mary here, very different
+style, looks like her mother, but softer; more in her, too. Very little
+money, poor girl, but charming. Oh! you must know her."
+
+"What did you say her mother's maiden name was?"
+
+"Maiden name? Let me see. Why--oh, no--oh, yes--Cleveland, Mary
+Cleveland."
+
+"Mary Cleveland, of Boston; married Hamilton Leithe, about nineteen
+years ago. I used to know the lady. And this is her daughter! And Mary
+Cleveland is dead!--Help yourself, Haymaker. I never take more than one
+course at this hour of the day."
+
+"But you must let me introduce you, you know," mumbled Haymaker,
+through his succotash.
+
+"I hardly know," said Drayton, rubbing his mustache. "Pardon me if I
+leave you," he added, looking at his watch. "It is later than I
+thought."
+
+Nothing more was seen of Drayton for the rest of that day. But the next
+morning, as Mary Leithe sat on the Bowlder Rock, with a book on her
+lap, and her eyes on the bathers, and her thoughts elsewhere, she heard
+a light, leisurely tread behind her, and a gentlemanly, effective
+figure made its appearance, carrying a malacca walking-stick, and a
+small telescope in a leather case slung over the shoulder.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Leithe," said this personage, in a quiet and
+pleasant voice. "I knew your mother before you were born, and I can not
+feel like a stranger toward her daughter. My name is Ambrose Drayton.
+You look something like your mother, I think."
+
+"I think I remember mamma's having spoken of you," said Mary Leithe,
+looking up a little shyly, but with a smile that was the most winning
+of her many winning manifestations. Her upper lip, short, but somewhat
+fuller than the lower one, was always alive with delicate movements;
+the corners of her mouth were blunt, the teeth small; and the smile was
+such as Psyche's might have been when Cupid waked her with a kiss.
+
+"It was here I first met your mother," continued Drayton, taking his
+place beside her. "We often sat together on this very rock. I was a
+young fellow then, scarcely older than you, and very full of romance
+and enthusiasm. Your mother--". He paused a moment, looking at his
+companion with a grave smile in his eyes. "If I had been as dear to her
+as she was to me," he went on, "you would have been our daughter."
+
+Mary looked out upon the bathers, and upon the azure bay, and into her
+own virgin heart. "Are you married, too?" she asked at length.
+
+"I was cut out for an old bachelor, and I have been true to my
+destiny," was his reply. "Besides, I've lived abroad till a month or
+two ago, and good Americans don't marry foreign wives."
+
+"I should like to go abroad," said Mary Leithe.
+
+"It is the privilege of Americans," said Drayton. "Other people are
+born abroad, and never know the delight of real travel. But, after all,
+America is best. The life of the world culminates here. We are the prow
+of the vessel; there may be more comfort amidships, but we are the
+first to touch the unknown seas. And the foremost men of all nations
+are foremost only in so far as they are at heart American; that is to
+say, America is, at present, even more an idea and a principle than it
+is a country. The nation has perhaps not yet risen to the height of its
+opportunities. So you have never crossed the Atlantic?"
+
+"No; my father never wanted to go; and after he died, mamma could not."
+
+"Well, our American Emerson says, you know, that, as the good of travel
+respects only the mind, we need not depend for it on railways and
+steamboats."
+
+"It seems to me, if we never moved ourselves, our minds would never
+really move either."
+
+"Where would you most care to go?"
+
+"To Rome, and Jerusalem, and Egypt, and London."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They seem like parts of my mind that I shall never know unless I visit
+them."
+
+"Is there no part of the world that answers to your heart?"
+
+"Oh, the beautiful parts everywhere, I suppose."
+
+"I can well believe it," said Drayton, but with so much simplicity and
+straightforwardness that Mary Leithe's cheeks scarcely changed color.
+"And there is beauty enough here," he added, after a pause.
+
+"Yes; I have always liked this place," said she, "though the cottages
+seem a pity."
+
+"You knew the old farm-house, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I used to play in the farm-yard when I was a little girl.
+After my father died, Mamma used to come here every year. And my aunt
+has a cottage here now. You haven't met my aunt, Mr. Drayton?"
+
+"I wished to know you first. But now I want to know her, and to become
+one of the family. There is no one left, I find, who belongs to me.
+What would you think of me for a bachelor uncle?"
+
+"I would like it very much," said Mary, with a smile.
+
+"Then let us begin," returned Drayton.
+
+Several days passed away very pleasantly. Never was there a bachelor
+uncle so charming, as Haymaker would have said, as Drayton. The kind of
+life in the midst of which he found himself was altogether novel and
+delightful to him. In some aspects it was like enjoying for the first
+time a part of his existence which he should have enjoyed in youth, but
+had missed; and in many ways he doubtless enjoyed it more now than he
+would have done then, for he brought it to a maturity of experience
+which had taught him the inestimable value of simple things; a quiet
+nobility of character and clearness of knowledge that enabled him to
+perceive and follow the right course in small things as in great; a
+serene yet cordial temperament that rendered him the cheerfulest and
+most trustworthy of companions; a generous and masculine disposition,
+as able to direct as to comply; and years which could sympathize
+impartially with youth and age, and supply something which each lacked.
+He, meanwhile, sometimes seemed to himself to be walking in a dream.
+The region in which he was living, changed, yet so familiar, the
+thought of being once more, after so many years of homeless wandering,
+in his own land and among his own countrymen, and the companionship of
+Mary Leithe, like, yet so unlike, the Mary Cleveland he had known and
+loved, possessing in reality all the tenderness and lovely virginal
+sweetness that he had imagined in the other, with a warmth of heart
+that rejuvenated his own, and a depth and freshness of mind answering
+to the wisdom that he had drawn from experience, and rendering her,
+though in her different and feminine sphere, his equal--all these
+things made Drayton feel as if he would either awake and find them the
+phantasmagoria of a beautiful dream, or as if the past time were the
+dream, and this the reality. Certainly, in this ardent, penetrating
+light of the present, the past looked vaporous and dim, like a range of
+mountains scaled long ago and vanishing on the horizon.
+
+And was this all? Doubtless it was, at first. It was natural that
+Drayton should regard with peculiar tenderness the daughter of the
+woman he had loved. She was an orphan, and poor; he was alone in the
+world, with no one dependent upon him, and with wealth which could find
+no better use than to afford this girl the opportunities and the
+enjoyments which she else must lack. His anticipations in returning to
+America had been somewhat cold and vague. It was his native land; but
+abstract patriotism is, after all, rather chilly diet for a human being
+to feed his heart upon. The unexpected apparition of Mary Leithe had
+provided just that vividness and particularity that were wanting.
+Insensibly Drayton bestowed upon her all the essence of the love of
+country which he had cherished untainted throughout his long exile. It
+was so much easier and simpler a thing to know and appreciate her than
+to do as much for the United States and their fifty million
+inhabitants, national, political, and social, that it is no wonder if
+Drayton, as a modest and sane gentleman, preferred to make the former
+the symbol of the latter--of all, at least, that was good and lovable
+therein. At the same time, so clear-headed a man could scarcely have
+failed to be aware that his affection for Mary Leithe was not actually
+dependent upon the fact of her being an emblem. Upon what, then, was it
+dependent? Upon her being the daughter of Mary Cleveland? It was true
+that he had loved Mary Cleveland; but she had deliberately jilted him
+to marry a wealthier man, and was therefore connected with and
+responsible for the most painful as well as the most pleasurable
+episode of his early life. Mary Leithe bore some personal resemblance
+to her mother; but had she been as like her in character and
+disposition as she was in figure and feature, would Drayton, knowing
+what he knew, have felt drawn toward her? A man does not remain for
+twenty years under the influence of an unreasonable and mistaken
+passion. Drayton certainly had not, although his disappointment had
+kept him a bachelor all his life, and altered the whole course of his
+existence. But when we have once embarked upon a certain career, we
+continue in it long after the motive which started us has been
+forgotten. No; Drayton's regard for Mary Leithe must stand on its own
+basis, independent of all other considerations.
+
+What, in the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely
+avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was
+the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The
+idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner.
+That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior
+rendered the suggestion yet more irrational. She was lustrous with
+lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay,
+he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the
+love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His
+attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive.
+His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of
+her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely and without fear.
+
+And yet, once again, was he not the dupe of himself and of a
+convention? Was his the mood in which an uncle studies his niece, or
+even a father his daughter? How often during the day was she absent
+from his thoughts, or from his dreams at night? What else gave him so
+much happiness as to please her, and what would he not do to give her
+pleasure? Why was he dissatisfied and aimless when not in her presence?
+Why so full-orbed and complete when she was near? He was eighteen years
+the elder, but there was in her a fullness of nature, a balanced
+development, which went far toward annulling the discrepancy. Moreover,
+though she was young, he was not old, and surely he had the knowledge,
+the resources, and the will to make her life happy. There would be, he
+fancied, a certain poetical justice in such an issue. It would
+illustrate the slow, seemingly severe, but really tender wisdom of
+Providence. Out of the very ashes of his dead hopes would arise this
+gracious flower of promise. She would afford him scope for the
+employment of all those riches, moral and material, which life had
+brought him; she would be his reward for having lived honorably and
+purely for purity's and honor's sake. But why multiply reasons? There
+was justification enough; and true love knows nothing of justification.
+He loved her, then; and now, did she love him? This was the real
+problem--the mystery of a maiden's heart, which all Solomon's wisdom
+and Bacon's logic fail to elucidate. Drayton did what he could. Once he
+came to her with the news that he must be absent from an excursion
+which they had planned, and he saw genuine disappointment darken her
+sweet face, and her slender figure seem to droop. This was well as far
+as it went, but beyond that it proved nothing. Another time he gave her
+a curious little shell which he had picked up while they were rambling
+together along the beach, and some time afterward he accidently noticed
+that she was wearing it by a ribbon round her neck. This seemed better.
+Again, on a night when there was a social gathering at the hotel, he
+entered the room and sat apart at one of the windows, and as long as he
+remained there he felt that her gaze was upon him, and twice or thrice
+when he raised his eyes they were met by hers, and she smiled; and
+afterward, when he was speaking near her, he noticed that she
+disregarded what her companion of the moment was saying to her, and
+listened only to him. Was not all this encouragement? Nevertheless,
+whenever, presuming upon this, he hazarded less ambiguous
+demonstrations, she seemed to shrink back and appear strange and
+troubled. This behavior perplexed him; he doubted the evidence that had
+given him hope; feared that he was a fool; that she divined his love,
+and pitied him, and would have him, if at all, only out of pity.
+Thereupon he took himself sternly to task, and resolved to give her up.
+
+It was a transparent July afternoon, with white and gray clouds
+drifting across a clear blue sky, and a southwesterly breeze roughening
+the dark waves and showing their white shoulders. Mary Leithe and
+Drayton came slowly along the rocks, he assisting her to climb or
+descend the more rugged places, and occasionally pausing with her to
+watch the white canvas of a yacht shiver in the breeze as she went
+about, or to question whether yonder flash amid the waves, where the
+gulls were hovering and dipping, were a bluefish breaking water. At
+length they reached a little nook in the seaward face, which, by often
+resorting to it, they had in a manner made their own. It was a small
+shelf in the rock, spacious enough for two to sit in at ease, with a
+back to lean against, and at one side a bit of level ledge which served
+as a stand or table. Before them was the sea, which, at high-water
+mark, rose to within three yards of their feet; while from the
+shoreward side they were concealed by the ascending wall of sandstone.
+Drayton had brought a cushion with him, which he arranged in Mary's
+seat; and when they had established themselves, he took a volume of
+Emerson's poems from his pocket and laid it on the rock beside him.
+
+"Are you comfortable?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I wish it would be always like this--the weather, and the sun,
+and the time--so that we might stay here forever."
+
+"Forever is the least useful word in human language," observed Drayton.
+"In the perspective of time, a few hours, or days, or years, seem alike
+inconsiderable."
+
+"But it is not the same to our hearts, which live forever," she
+returned.
+
+"The life of the heart is love," said Drayton.
+
+"And that lasts forever," said Mary Leithe.
+
+"True love lasts, but the object changes," was his reply.
+
+"It seems to change sometimes," said she.
+
+"But I think it is only our perception that is misled. We think we have
+found what we love; but afterward, perhaps, we find it was not in the
+person we supposed, but in some other. Then we love it in him; not
+because our heart has changed, but just because it has not."
+
+"Has that been your experience?" Drayton asked, with a smile.
+
+"Oh, I was speaking generally," she said, looking down.
+
+"It may be the truth; but if so, it is a perilous thing to be loved."
+
+"Perilous?"
+
+"Why, yes. How can the lover be sure that he really is what his
+mistress takes him for? After all, a man has and is nothing in himself.
+His life, his love, his goodness, such as they are, flow into him from
+his Creator, in such measure as he is capable or desirous of receiving
+them. And he may receive more at one time than at another. How shall he
+know when he may lose the talismanic virtue that won her love--even
+supposing he ever possessed it?"
+
+"I don't know how to argue," said Mary Leithe; "I can only feel when a
+thing is true or not--or when I think it is--and say what I feel."
+
+"Well, I am wise enough to trust the truth of your feeling before any
+argument."
+
+This assertion somewhat disconcerted Mary Leithe, who never liked to be
+confronted with her own shadow, so to speak. However, she seemed
+resolved on this occasion to give fuller utterance than usual to what
+was in her mind; so, after a pause, she continued, "It is not only how
+much we are capable of receiving from God, but the peculiar way in
+which each one of us shows what is in him, that makes the difference in
+people. It is not the talisman so much as the manner of using it that
+wins a girl's love. And she may think one manner good until she comes
+to know that another is better."
+
+"And, later, that another is better still?"
+
+"You trust my feeling less than you thought, you see," said Mary,
+blushing, and with a tremor of her lips.
+
+"Perhaps I am afraid of trusting it too much," Drayton replied, fixing
+his eyes upon her. Then he went on, with a changed tone and manner:
+"This metaphysical discussion of ours reminds me of one of Emerson's
+poems, whose book, by-the-by, I brought with me. Have you ever read
+them?"
+
+"Very few of them," said Mary; "I don't seem to belong to them."
+
+"Not many people can eat them raw, I imagine," rejoined Drayton,
+laughing. "They must be masticated by the mind before they can nourish
+the heart, and some of them--However, the one I am thinking of is very
+beautiful, take it how you will. It is called, 'Give all to Love.' Do
+you know it!"
+
+Mary shook her head.
+
+"Then listen to it," said Drayton, and he read the poem to her. "What
+do you think of it?" he asked when he had ended.
+
+"It is very short," said Mary, "and it is certainly beautiful; but I
+don't understand some parts of it, and I don't think I like some other
+parts."
+
+"It is a true poem," returned Drayton; "it has a body and a soul; the
+body is beautiful, but the soul is more beautiful still; and where the
+body seems incomplete, the soul is most nearly perfect. Be loyal, it
+says, to the highest good you know; follow it through all difficulties
+and dangers; make it the core of your heart and the life of your soul;
+and yet, be free of it! For the hour may always be at hand when that
+good that you have lived for and lived in must be given up. And then--
+what says the poet?
+
+  "'Though thou loved her as thyself,
+  As a self of purer clay,
+  Though her parting dims the day,
+  Stealing grace from all alive,
+  Heartily know,
+  When half-gods go,
+  The gods arrive.'"
+
+There was something ominous in Drayton's tone, quiet and pleasant
+though it sounded to the ear, and Mary could not speak; she knew that
+he would speak again, and that his words would bring the issue finally
+before her.
+
+He shut the book and put it in his pocket. For some time he remained
+silent, gazing eastward across the waves, which came from afar to break
+against the rock at their feet. A small white pyramidal object stood up
+against the horizon verge, and upon this Drayton's attention appeared
+to be concentrated.
+
+"If you should ever decide to come," he said at length, "and want the
+services of a courier who knows the ground well, I shall be at your
+disposal."
+
+"Come where?" she said, falteringly.
+
+"Eastward. To Europe."
+
+"You will go with me?"
+
+"Hardly that. But I shall be there to receive you."
+
+"You are going back?"
+
+"In a month, or thereabouts."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Drayton! Why?"
+
+"Well, for several reasons. My coming here was an experiment. It might
+have succeeded, but it was made too late. I am too old for this young
+country. I love it, but I can be of no service to it. On the contrary,
+so far as I was anything, I should be in the way. It does not need me,
+and I have been an exile so long as to have lost my right to inflict
+myself upon it. Yet I am glad to have been here; the little time that I
+have been here has recompensed me for all the sorrows of my life, and I
+shall never forget an hour of it as long as I live."
+
+"Are you quite sure that your country does not want you--need you?"
+
+"I should not like my assurance to be made more sure."
+
+"How can you know? Who has told you? Whom have you asked?"
+
+"There are some questions which it is not wise to put; questions whose
+answers may seem ungracious to give, and are sad to hear."
+
+"But the answer might not seem so. And how can it be given until you
+ask it?"
+
+Drayton turned and looked at her. His face was losing its resolute
+composure, and there was a glow in his eyes and in his cheeks that
+called up an answering warmth in her own.
+
+"Do you know where my country is?" he demanded, almost sternly.
+
+"It is where you are loved and wanted most, is it not?" she said,
+breathlessly.
+
+"Do not deceive yourself--nor me!" exclaimed Drayton, putting out his
+hand toward her, and half rising from the rock. "There is only one
+thing more to say."
+
+A sea-gull flew close by them, and swept on, and in a moment was far
+away, and lost to sight. So in our lives does happiness come so near us
+as almost to brush our cheeks with its wings, and then pass on, and
+become as unattainable as the stars. As Mary Leithe was about to speak,
+a shadow cast from above fell across her face and figure. She seemed to
+feel a sort of chill from it, warm though the day was; and without
+moving her eyes from Drayton's face to see whence the shadow came, her
+expression underwent a subtle and sudden change, losing the fervor of a
+moment before, and becoming relaxed and dismayed. But after a moment
+Drayton looked up, and immediately rose to his feet, exclaiming, "Frank
+Redmond!"
+
+On the rock just above them stood a young man, dark of complexion, with
+eager eyes, and a figure athletic and strong. As Drayton spoke his
+name, his countenance assumed an expression half-way between pleased
+surprise and jealous suspicion. Meanwhile Mary Leithe had covered her
+face with her hands.
+
+"I'm sure I'd no idea you were here, Mr. Drayton," said the young man.
+"I was looking for Mary Leithe. Is that she?"
+
+Mary uncovered her face, and rose to her feet languidly. She did not as
+yet look toward Redmond, but she said in a low voice, "How do you do,
+Frank? You--came so suddenly!"
+
+"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
+back a little and lifting his head.
+
+Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
+the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
+stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
+Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
+have got through your first greetings."
+
+"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
+
+"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
+was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
+and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
+Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
+I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
+married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
+lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
+any one who in my opinion--How do you do, Frank? You--came so
+suddenly!"
+
+"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
+back a little and lifting his head.
+
+Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
+the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
+stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
+Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
+have got through your first greetings."
+
+"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
+
+"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
+was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
+and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
+Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
+I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
+married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
+lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
+any one who in my opinion would suit her better. Come down here and
+shake hands, Frank, and then I'll leave you to make your excuses to
+Miss Leithe. And the next time you come back to her after a year's
+absence, don't frighten her heart into her mouth by springing out on
+her like a jack-in-the-box. Send a bunch of flowers or a signet-ring to
+tell her you are coming, or you may get a cooler reception than you'd
+like!"
+
+"Ah! Ambrose Drayton," he sighed to himself as he clambered down the
+rocks alone, and sauntered along the shore, "there is no fool like an
+old fool. Where were your eyes that you couldn't have seen what was the
+matter? Her heart was fighting against itself all the time, poor child!
+And you, selfish brute, bringing to bear on her all your antiquated
+charms and fascinations--Heaven save the mark!--and bullying her into
+the belief that you could make her happy! Thank God, Ambrose Drayton,
+that your awakening did not come too late. A minute more would have
+made her and you miserable for life--and Redmond too, confound him! And
+yet they might have told me; one of them might have told me, surely.
+Even at my age it is hard to remember one's own insignificance. And I
+did love her! God knows how I loved her! I hope he loves her as much;
+but how can he help it! And she--she won't remember long! An old fellow
+who made believe he was her uncle, and made rather a fool of himself;
+went back to Europe, and never been heard of since. Ah, me!"
+
+"Where did you get acquainted with Mr. Drayton, Frank?"
+
+"At Dresden. It was during the vacation at Freiberg last winter, and I
+had come over to Dresden to have a good time. We stayed at the same
+hotel. We played a game of billiards together, and he chatted with me
+about America, and asked me about my mining studies at Freiberg; and I
+thought him about the best fellow I'd ever met. But I didn't know then
+--I hadn't any conception what a splendid fellow he really was. If ever
+I hear anybody talking of their ideal of a gentleman, I shall ask them
+if they ever met Ambrose Drayton."
+
+"What did he do?"
+
+"Well, the story isn't much to my credit; if it hadn't been for him,
+you might never have heard of me again; and it will serve me right to
+confess the whole thing to you. It's about a--woman."
+
+"What sort of a woman?"
+
+"She called herself a countess; but there's no telling what she really
+was. I only know she got me into a fearful scrape, and if it hadn't
+been for Mr. Drayton--"
+
+"Did you do anything wrong, Frank?"
+
+"No; upon my honor as a gentleman! If I had, Mary, I wouldn't be here
+now."
+
+Mary looked at him with a sad face. "Of course I believe you, Frank,"
+she said. "But I think I would rather not hear any more about it."
+
+"Well, I'll only tell you what Mr. Drayton did. I told him all about it
+--how it began, and how it went on, and all; and how I was engaged to a
+girl in America--I didn't tell him your name; and I wasn't sure, then,
+whether you'd ever marry me, after all; because, you know, you had been
+awfully angry with me before I went away, because I wanted to study in
+Europe instead of staying at home. But, you see, I've got my diploma,
+and that'll give me a better start than I ever should have had if I'd
+only studied here. However--what was I saying? Oh! so he said he would
+find out about the countess, and talk to her himself. And how he
+managed I don't know; and he gave me a tremendous hauling over the
+coals for having been such an idiot; but it seems that instead of being
+a poor injured, deceived creature, with a broken heart, and all that
+sort of thing, she was a regular adventuress--an old hand at it, and
+had got lots of money out of other fellows for fear she would make a
+row. But Mr. Drayton had an interview with her. I was there, and I
+never shall forget it if I live to a hundred. You never saw anybody so
+quiet, so courteous, so resolute, and so immitigably stern as he was.
+And yet he seemed to be stern only against the wrong she was trying to
+do, and to be feeling kindness and compassion for her all the time. She
+tried everything she knew, but it wasn't a bit of use, and at last she
+broke down and cried, and carried on like a child. Then Mr. Drayton
+took her out of the room, and I don't know what happened, but I've
+always suspected that he sent her off with money enough in her pocket
+to become an honest woman with if she chose to; but he never would
+admit it to me. He came back to me after a while, and told me to have
+nothing more to do with any woman, good or bad except the woman I
+meant to marry, and I promised him I wouldn't, and I kept my promise.
+But we have him to thank for our happiness, Mary."
+
+Tears came silently into Mary's eyes; she said nothing, but sat with
+her hands clasped around one knee, gazing seaward.
+
+"You don't seem very happy, though," pursued Redmond, after a pause;
+"and you acted so oddly when I first found you and Mr. Drayton
+together--I almost thought--well, I didn't know what to think. You do
+love me, don't you?"
+
+For a few moments Mary Leithe sat quite motionless, save for a slight
+tremor of the nerves that pervaded her whole body; and then, all at
+once, she melted into sobs. Redmond could not imagine what was the
+matter with her; but he put his arms round her, and after a little
+hesitation or resistance, the girl hid her face upon his shoulder, and
+wept for the secret that she would never tell.
+
+But Mary Leithe's nature was not a stubborn one, and easily adapted
+itself to the influences with which she was most closely in contact.
+When she and Redmond presented themselves at Aunt Corwin's cottage that
+evening her tears were dried, and only a tender dimness of the eyes and
+a droop of her sweet mouth betrayed that she had shed any.
+
+"Mr. Drayton wanted to be remembered to you, Mary," observed Aunt
+Corwin, shortly before going to bed. She had been floating colored sea-
+weeds on paper all the time since supper, and had scarcely spoken a
+dozen words.
+
+"Has he gone?" Mary asked.
+
+"Who? Oh, yes; he had a telegram, I believe. His trunks were to follow
+him. He said he would write. I liked that man. He was not like Mr.
+Haymaker; he was a gentleman. He took an interest in my collections,
+and gave me several nice specimens. Your mother was a fool not to have
+married him. I wish you could have married him yourself. But it was not
+to be expected that he would care for a child like you, even if your
+head were not turned by that Frank Redmond. How soon shall you let him
+marry you?"
+
+"Whenever he likes," answered Mary Leithe, turning away.
+
+As a matter of fact, they were married the following winter. A week
+before the ceremony a letter arrived for Mary from New York, addressed
+in a legal hand. It contained an intimation that, in accordance with
+the instructions of their client, Mr. Ambrose Drayton, the undersigned
+had placed to her account the sum of fifty thousand dollars as a
+preliminary bequest, it being the intention of Mr. Drayton to make her
+his heir. There was an inclosure from Drayton himself, which Mary,
+after a moment's hesitation, placed in her lover's hand, and bade him
+break the seal.
+
+It contained only a few lines, wishing happiness to the bride and
+bridegroom, and hoping they all might meet in Europe, should the
+wedding trip extend so far. "And as for you, my dear niece," continued
+the writer, "whenever you think of me remember that little poem of
+Emerson's that we read on the rocks the last time I saw you. The longer
+I live the more of truth do I find in it, especially in the last verse:
+
+  "'Heartily know,
+  When half-gods go,
+  The gods arrive!'"
+
+"What does that mean?" demanded Redmond, looking up from the letter.
+
+"We can not know except by experience," answered Mary Leithe.
+
+
+
+
+"SET NOT THY FOOT ON GRAVES."
+
+
+_New York_, _April 29th_.--Last night I came upon this
+passage in my old author: "Friend, take it sadly home to thee--Age and
+Youthe are strangers still. Youthe, being ignorant of the wisdome of
+Age, which is Experience, but wise with its own wisdome, which is of
+the unshackeled Soule, or Intuition, is great in Enterprise, but slack
+in Achievement. Holding itself equal to all attempts and conditions,
+and to be heir, not of its own spanne of yeares and compasse of
+Faculties only, but of all time and all Human Nature--such, I saye,
+being its illusion (if, indeede, it be illusion, and not in some sorte
+a Truth), it still underrateth the value of Opportunitie, and, in the
+vain beleefe that the City of its Expectation is paved with Golde and
+walled with Precious Stones, letteth slip betwixt its fingers those
+diamondes and treasures which ironical Fate offereth it.... But see
+nowe what the case is when this youthe becometh in yeares. For nowe he
+can nowise understand what defecte of Judgmente (or effecte of
+insanitie rather) did leade him so to despise and, as it were, reject
+those Giftes and golden chaunces which come but once to mortal men.
+Experience (that saturnine Pedagogue) hath taught him what manner of
+man he is, and that, farre from enjoying that Deceptive Seeminge or
+mirage of Freedome which would persuade him that he may run hither and
+thither as the whim prompteth over the face of the Earthe--yea, take
+the wings of the morninge and winnowe his aerie way to the Pleiadies--
+he must e'en plod heavilie and with paine along that single and narrowe
+Path whereto the limitations of his personal nature and profession
+confine him--happy if he arrive with muche diligence and faire credit
+at the ende thereof, and falle not ignobly by the way. Neverthelesse--
+for so great is the infatuation of man, who, although he acquireth all
+other knowledge, yet arriveth not at the knowledge of Himself--if to
+the Sage of Experience he proffered once again the gauds and prizes of
+youthe, which he hath ever since regretted and longed for--what doeth
+he in his wisdome? Verilie, so longe as the matter remaineth _in
+nubibis_, as the Latins say, or in the Region of the Imagination, as
+oure speeche hath it, he will beleeve, yea, take his oathe, that he
+still is master of all those capacities and energies whiche, in his
+youthe, would have prompted and enabled him to profit by this desired
+occurrence. Yet shall it appeare (if the thinge be brought still
+further to the teste, and, from an Imagination or Dreame, become an
+actual Realitie), that he will shrinke from and decline that which he
+did erste so ardently sigh for and covet. And the reason of this is as
+follows, to-wit: That Habit or Custome hath brought him more to love
+and affect those very ways and conditions of life, yea, those
+inconveniences and deficiencies which he useth to deplore and abhorre,
+than that Crown of Golde or Jewel of Happiness whose withholding he
+hath all his life lamented. Hence we may learne, that what is past, is
+dead, and that though thoughts be free, nature is ever captive, and
+loveth her chaine."
+
+This is too lugubrious and cynical not to have some truth in it; but I
+am unwilling to believe that more than half of it is true. The author
+himself was evidently an old man, and therefore a prejudiced judge; and
+he did not make allowances for the range and variety of temperament.
+Age is not a matter of years, and scarcely of experience. The only
+really old persons are the selfish ones. The man whose thoughts,
+actions, and affections center upon himself, soon acquires a fixity and
+crustiness which (if to be old is to be "strange to youth") is old as
+nothing else is. But the man who makes the welfare and happiness of
+others his happiness, is as young at threescore as he was at twenty,
+and perhaps even younger, for he has had no time to grow old.
+
+_April 30th_.--The Courtneys are in town! This is, I believe, her
+first visit to America since he married her. At all events, I have not
+seen or heard of her in all these seven years. I wonder ... I was going
+to write, I wonder whether she remembers me. Of course she remembers
+me, in a sort of way. I am tied up somewhere among her bundle of
+recollections, and occasionally, in an idle moment, her eye falls upon
+me, and moves her, perhaps, to smile or to sigh. For my own part, in
+thinking over our old days, I find I forget her less than I had
+supposed. Probably she has been more or less consciously in my mind
+throughout. In the same way, one has always latent within him the
+knowledge that he must die; but it does not follow that he is
+continually musing on the thought of death. As with death, so with this
+old love of mine. What a difference, if we had married! She was a very
+lovely girl--at least, I thought so then. Very likely I should not
+think her so now. My taste and knowledge have developed; a different
+order of things interests me. It may not be an altogether pleasant
+thing to confess; but, knowing myself as I now do, I have often thanked
+my stars that I am a bachelor.
+
+Doubtless she is even more changed than I am. A woman changes more than
+a man in seven years, and a married woman especially must change a
+great deal from twenty-two to twenty-nine. Think of Ethel Leigh being
+in her thirtieth year! and the mother of four or five children,
+perhaps. Well, for the matter of that, think of the romantic and
+ambitious young Claude Campbell being an old bachelor of forty! I have
+married Art instead of Ethel, and she, instead of being Mrs. Campbell,
+is Mrs. Courtney.
+
+It was a surprising thing--her marrying him so suddenly. But,
+appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I have never quite made up
+my mind that Ethel was really fickle. She did it out of pique, or
+pride, or impulse, or whatever it is that sways women in such cases.
+She was angry, or indignant--how like fire and ice at once she was when
+she was angry!--and she was resolved to show me that she could do
+without me. She would not listen to my explanations; and I was always
+awkward and stiff about making explanations. Besides, it was not an
+easy matter to explain, especially to a girl like her. With a married
+woman or a widow it would have been a simple thing enough. But Ethel
+Leigh, the minister's daughter--innocent, ignorant, passionate--she would
+tolerate nothing short of a public disavowal and discontinuance of my
+relations with Mrs. Murray, and that, of course, I could not consent to,
+though heaven knows (and so must Ethel, by this time) that Mrs. Murray was
+nothing to me save as she was the wife of my friend, during whose
+enforced absence I was bound to look after her, to some extent. It was
+not my fault that poor Mrs. Murray was a fool. But such are the
+trumpery seeds from which tragedies grow. Not that ours was a tragedy,
+exactly: Ethel married her English admirer, and I became a somewhat
+distinguished artist, that is all. I wonder whether she has been happy!
+Likely enough; she was born to be wealthy; Englishmen make good
+husbands sometimes, and her London life must have been a brilliant
+one.... I have been looking at my old photograph of her--the one she
+gave me the morning after we were engaged. Tall, slender, dark, with
+level brows, and the bearing of a Diana. She certainly was handsome,
+and I shall not run the risk of spoiling this fine memory by calling on
+her. Even if she have not deteriorated, she can scarcely have improved.
+Nay, even were she the same now as then, I should not find her so,
+because of the change in myself. Why should I blink the truth?
+Experience, culture, and the sober second thought of middle age have
+carried me far beyond the point where I could any longer be in sympathy
+with this crude, thin-skinned, impulsive girl. And then--four or five
+children! Decidedly, I will give her a wide berth. And Courtney
+himself, with his big beard, small brain, and obtrusive laugh! I shall
+step across to California for a few months.
+
+_May 1st_.--Called this morning on Ethel Leigh--Mrs. Deighton
+Courtney, that is to say. She is not so much changed, but she has
+certainly improved. When I say she has not changed much, I refer to her
+physical appearance. Her features are scarcely altered; her figure is a
+little fuller and more compact; in her bearing there is a certain quiet
+composure and self-possession--the air of a woman who has seen the
+world, has received admiration, and is familiar with the graceful
+little arts of social intercourse. In short, she has acquired a high
+external polish; and that is precisely what she most needed. Evidently,
+too, there is an increased mental refinement corresponding to the
+outward manner. She has mellowed, sweetened--whether deepened or not I
+should hesitate to affirm. But I am quite sure that I find her more
+charming to talk with, more supple in intercourse, more fascinating, in
+a word, than formerly. We chatted discursively and rather volubly for
+more than an hour; yet we did not touch on anything very serious or
+profound. They are staying at the Brevoort House. Courtney himself, by-
+the-by, is still in Boston (they landed there), where business will
+detain him a few days. Ethel goes on a house-hunting expedition to-
+morrow, and I am going with her; for New York has altered out of her
+recollection during these seven years. They are to remain here three
+years, perhaps longer. Courtney is to establish and oversee an American
+branch of his English business.
+
+They have only one child--a pretty little thing: Susie and I became
+great friends.
+
+Mrs. Courtney opened the door of the private sitting-room in which I
+was awaiting her, and came in--beautifully! She has learned how to do
+that since I knew her. My own long residence in Paris has made me more
+critical than I used to be in such matters; but I do not remember
+having met any woman in society with manners more nearly perfect than
+Mrs. Courtney's. Ethel Leigh used to be, upon occasion, painfully
+abrupt and disconcerting; and her movements and attitudes, though there
+was abundant native grace in them, were often careless and
+unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment,
+without sound qualities of mind and heart to back them, are of trifling
+value; but the two kinds of attraction are by no means incompatible
+with each other. Mrs. Courtney smiles often. Ethel Leigh used to smile
+rarely, although, when the smile did come, it was irresistibly winning;
+there was in it exquisite significance and tenderness. It is a
+beautiful smile still, but that charm of rarity (if it be a charm) is
+lacking. It is a conventional smile more than a spontaneous or a happy
+one; indeed, it led me to surmise that she had perhaps not been very
+happy since we last met, and had learned to use this smile as a sort of
+veil. Not that I suppose for a moment that Courtney has ill-treated
+her. I never could see anything in the man beyond a superficial
+comeliness, a talent for business, and an affable temper; but ho was
+not in any sense a bad fellow. Besides, he was over head and ears in
+love with her; and Ethel would be sure to have the upper hand of a
+nature like his. No, her unhappiness, if she be unhappy, would be due
+to no such cause, she and her husband are no doubt on good terms with
+each other. But--suppose she has discovered that he fell short of what
+she demanded in a husband; that she overmatched him; that, in order to
+make their life smooth, she must descend to him? I imagine it may be
+something of that kind. Poor Mrs. Courtney!
+
+She addressed me as "Mr. Campbell," and I dare say she was right. Women
+best know how to meet these situations. To have called me "Claude"
+would have placed us in a false position, by ignoring the changes that
+have taken place. It is wise to respect these barriers; they are
+conventional, but, rightly considered, they are more of an assistance
+than of an obstacle to freedom of intercourse. I asked her how she
+liked England. She smiled and said, "It was my business to like
+England; still, I am glad to see America once more."
+
+"You will entertain a great deal, I presume--that sort of thing?"
+
+"We shall hope to make friends with people--and to meet old friends.
+It is such a pleasant surprise to find you here. I heard you were
+settled in Paris."
+
+"So I was, for several years; the Parisians said nice things about my
+pictures. But one may weary even of Paris. I returned here two years
+ago, and am now as much of a fixture in New York as if I'd never left
+it."
+
+"But not a permanent fixture. Shall we never see you in London?"
+
+"My present probabilities lie rather in the direction of California. I
+want to make some studies of the scenery and the atmosphere. Besides, I
+am getting too old to think of another European residence."
+
+"No one gets old after thirty--especially no bachelor!" she answered,
+with a smile. "But if you were ever to feel old, the society of London
+would rejuvenate you."
+
+"It has certainly done you no harm. But you have the happiness to be
+married."
+
+She looked at me pleasantly and said, "Yes, I make a good
+Englishwoman." That sounded like an evasion, but the expression of her
+face was not evasive. In the old days she would probably have flushed
+up and said something cutting.
+
+"You must see my little girl," she said, after a while.
+
+The child was called, and presently came in. She resembles her mother,
+and has a vivacity scarcely characteristic of English children. I am
+not constitutionally a worshiper of children, but I liked Susie. She
+put her arms round her mother's arm, and gazed at me with wide-eyed
+scrutiny."
+
+"This is Mr. Campbell," said mamma.
+
+"My name is Susan Courtney," said the little thing. "We are going to
+stay in New York three years. Hot here--this is only an hotel--we are
+going to have a house. How do you do? This is my dolly."
+
+I saluted dolly, and thereby inspired its parent with confidence: she
+put her hand in mine, and gave me her smooth little cheek to kiss. "You
+are not like papa," she then observed.
+
+I smiled conciliatingly, being uncertain whether it were prudent to
+follow this lead; but Mrs. Courtney asked, "In what way different,
+dear?"
+
+"Papa has a beard," replied Susie.
+
+The incident rather struck me; it seemed to indicate that Mrs. Courtney
+was under no apprehension that the child would say anything
+embarrassing about the father. Having learned so much, I ventured
+farther.
+
+"Do you love papa or mamma best?" I inquired.
+
+"I am with mamma most," she answered, after meditation, "but when papa
+comes, I like him."
+
+This was non-committal. She continued, "Papa is coming here day after
+to-morrow. To-morrow, mamma and I are going to find a house."
+
+"Your husband leaves all that to you?" I said, turning to Mrs.
+Courtney.
+
+"Mr. Courtney never knows or cares what sort of a place he lives in. It
+took me some little time to get used to that. I wanted everything to be
+just in a certain way. They used to laugh at me, and say I was more
+English than he."
+
+"Now that you are both here, you must both be American."
+
+"He doesn't enjoy America much. Of course, it is very different from
+London. An Englishman can not be expected to care for American ways and
+American quickness, and--"
+
+"American people?" I put in, laughingly.
+
+"Don't undress dolly here," she said to Susie. "It isn't time yet to
+put her to bed, and she might catch cold."
+
+Was this another evasion? The serene face betrayed nothing, but she
+had left unanswered the question that aimed at discovering how she and
+her husband stood toward each other. After all, however, no answer
+could have told me more than her no answer did--supposing it to have
+been intentional. I soon afterward took my leave, after having arranged
+to call to-morrow and accompany her and Susie on their house-hunting
+expedition. Upon the whole, I don't think I am sorry to have renewed my
+acquaintance with her. She is more delightful--as an acquaintance--than
+when I knew her formerly. Should I have fallen in love with her had I
+met her for the first time as she is now? Yes, and no! In the old days
+there was something about her that commanded me--that fascinated my
+youthful imagination. Perhaps it was only the freshness, the ignorance,
+the timidity of young maidenhood--that mystery of possibilities of a
+nature that has not yet met the world and received its impress for good
+or evil. It is this which captivates in youth; and this, of course,
+Mrs. Courtney has lost. But every quality that might captivate mature
+manhood is hers, and, were I likely to think of marriage now, and were
+she marriageable, she is the type of woman I would choose. Yet I do not
+quite relish the perception that my present feminine ideal (whether it
+be lower or higher) is not the former one. But,--frankly, would I marry
+her if I could? I hardly know: I have got out of the habit of regarding
+marriage as among my possibilities; many avenues of happiness that once
+were open to me are now closed against me. Put it, that I have lost a
+faculty--that I am now able to enjoy only in imagination a phase of
+existence that, formerly, I could have enjoyed in fact. This bit of
+self-analysis may be erroneous; but I would not like to run the risk of
+proving it so! Am I not well enough off as I am? My health is fair, my
+mind active, my reputation secure, my finances prosperous. The things
+that I can dream must surely be better than anything that could happen.
+I can picture, for example, a state of matrimonial felicity which no
+marriage of mine could realize. Besides, I can, whenever I choose, see
+Mrs. Courtney herself, talk with her, and enjoy her as a reasonable and
+congenial friend, apart from the danger and disappointment that might
+result from a closer connection. I think I have chosen the wiser part,
+or, rather, the wiser part has been thrust upon me. That I shall never
+be wildly happy is, at least, security that I shall never be profoundly
+miserable. I shall simply be comfortable. Is this sour grapes? Am I, if not
+counting, then discounting my eggs before they are hatched? To such
+questions a practical--a materialized--answer would be the only
+conclusive one. Were Mrs. Courtney ready to drop into my mouth, I
+should either open my mouth, or else I should shut it, and either act
+would be conclusive. But, so far from being ready to drop into my mouth,
+she is immovably and (to all appearances) contentedly fixed where she
+is. I suppose I am insinuating that appearances are deceptive; that she
+may be unhappy with her husband, and desire to leave him. Well, there
+is no technical evidence in support of such an hypothesis; but, again, in
+a matter of this kind, it is not so much the technical as the indirect
+evidence that tells--the cadences of the voice, the breathing, the
+silences, the atmosphere. There is no denying that I did somehow
+acquire a vague impression that Courtney is not so large a figure in his
+wife's eyes as he might be. I may have been biased by my previous
+conception of his character, or I may have misinterpreted the impalpable,
+indescribable signs that I remarked in her. But, once more, how do I
+know that her not caring for him would postulate her caring for me? Why
+should she care for either of us? Our old romance is to her as the memory
+of something read in a book, and it is powerless to make her heart beat
+one throb the faster. Were Courtney to die to-morrow, would his widow
+expect me to marry her? Not she! She would settle down here quietly,
+educate her daughter, and think better of her departed husband with
+every year that passed, and less of repeating the experiment that made
+her his! I may be prone to romantic and elaborate speculations, but I am
+not exactly a fool. I do not delude myself with the idea that Mrs. Courtney
+is, at this moment, following my example by recording her impressions of
+me at her own writing-desk, and asking herself whether--if such and
+such a thing were to happen--such another would be apt to follow.
+No; she has put Susie to bed, and is by this time asleep herself, after
+having read through the "Post," or "Bazar," or the last new novel, as
+her predilection may be. It is after midnight; since she has not followed
+my example, I will follow hers; it is much the more sensible of the two.
+
+_May 2d_.--What a woman she is! and, in a different sense, what a
+man I am! How little does a man know or suspect himself until he is
+brought to the proof! How serenely and securely I philosophized and
+laid down the law yesterday! and to-day, how strange to contrast the
+event with my prognostication of it! And yet, again, how little has
+happened that might not be told in such a way as to appear nothing! It
+was the latent meaning, the spirit, the touch of look and tone. Her
+husband may have reached New York by this time; they may be together at
+this moment; he will find no perceptible change in her--perceptible to
+him! He will be told that I have been her escort during the day, and
+that I was polite and serviceable, and that a house has been selected.
+What more is there to tell? Nothing--that he could hear or understand!
+and yet--everything! He will say, "Yes, I recollect Campbell; nice
+fellow; have him to dine with us one of these days." But I shall never
+sit at their table; I shall never see her again; I can not! I shall
+start for California next week. Meanwhile I will write down the history
+of one day, for it is well to have these things set visibly before one
+--to grasp the nettle, as it were. Nothing is so formidable as it
+appears when we shrink from defining it to ourselves.
+
+I drove to the hotel in my brougham at eleven o'clock, as we had
+previously arranged. She was ready and waiting for me, and little Susie
+was with her. Ethel was charmingly dressed, and there was a soft look
+in her eyes as she turned them on me--a look that seemed to say, "I
+remember the past; it is pleasant to see you, so pleasant as to be
+sad!" Susie came to me as if I were an old friend, and I lifted the
+child from the floor and kissed her twice.
+
+"Why did you give me two kisses?" she demanded, as I put her down.
+"Papa always gives me only one kiss."
+
+"Papa has mamma as well as you to kiss; but I have no one; I am an old
+bachelor."
+
+"When you have known mamma longer, will you kiss her too?"
+
+"Old bachelors kiss nobody but little girls," I replied, laughing.
+
+"We went down to the brougham, and after we were seated and on our
+way," Ethel said, "Already I feel so much at home in New York, it almost
+startles me. I fancied I should have forgotten old associations--should
+have grown out of sympathy with them; but I seem only to have learned
+to appreciate them more. Our memory for some things is better than we
+would believe."
+
+"There are two memories in us," I remarked; "the memory of the heart
+and the memory of the head. The former never is lost, though the other
+may be. But I had not supposed that you cared very deeply for the
+American period of your life."
+
+"England is very agreeable," she said, rather hastily. She turned her
+head and looked out of the window; but after a pause she added, as if
+to herself, "but I am an American!"
+
+"There is, no doubt, a deep-rooted and substantial repose in English
+life such as is scarcely to be found elsewhere," I said; "but, for all
+that, I have often thought that the best part of domestic happiness
+could exist nowhere but here. Here a man may marry the woman he loves,
+and their affection for each other will be made stronger by the
+hardships they may have to pass through. After all, when we come to the
+end of our lives, it is not the business we have done, nor the social
+distinction we have enjoyed--it is the love we have given and received
+that we are glad of."
+
+"Mamma," inquired Susie, "does Mr. Campbell love you?"
+
+We both of us looked at the child and laughed a little. "Mr. Campbell
+is an old friend," said Ethel. After a few moments she blushed. She
+held in her hand some house-agents' orders to view houses, and these
+she now began to examine. "Is this Madison Avenue place likely to be a
+good one?" she asked me.
+
+"It is conveniently situated and comfortable; but I should think it
+might be too large for a family of three. Perhaps, though, you don't
+like a close fit?"
+
+"I don't like empty rooms, though I prefer such rooms as there are to
+be large. But it doesn't make much difference. Mr. Courtney moves about
+a good deal, and he is as happy in a hotel as anywhere. These American
+hotels are luxurious and splendid, but they are not home-like to me."
+
+"I remember you used to dislike being among a crowd of people you
+didn't know."
+
+"Yes, and I haven't yet learned to be sociable in that way. A friend is
+more company for me than a score of acquaintances. Dear me! I'm afraid
+New York will spoil me--for England!"
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Courtney may be cured of England by New York."
+
+She smiled and said, "Perhaps! He accommodates himself to things more
+easily than I do, but I think one needs to be born in America to know
+how to love it."
+
+Under the veil of discussing America and things in general, we were
+talking of ourselves, awakening reminiscences of the past, and
+discovering, with a pleasure we did not venture to acknowledge, that--
+allowing for the events and the years that had come between--we were as
+much in accord as when we were young lovers. Yes, as much, and perhaps
+even more. For surely, if one grows in the right way, the sphere of
+knowledge and sympathy must enlarge, and thereby the various points of
+contact between two minds and hearts must be multiplied. Ethel and I,
+during these seven years, had traveled our round of daily life on
+different sides of the earth; but the miles of sea and land which had
+physically separated us had been powerless to estrange our spirits.
+Nothing is more strange, in this mysterious complexity of impressions
+and events that we call human existence, than the fact that two beings,
+entirely cut off from all natural means of association and communion,
+may yet, unknown to each other, be breathing the same spiritual air and
+learning the same moral and intellectual lessons. Like two seeds of the
+same species, planted, the one in American soil, the other in English,
+Ethel and I had selected, by some instinct of the soul, the same
+elements from our different surroundings; so that now, when we met once
+more, we found a close and harmonious resemblance between the leaves
+and blossoms of our experience. What can be more touching and
+delightful than such a discovery? Or what more sad than to know that it
+came too late for us to profit by it?
+
+Oh, Ethel, how easy it is to take the little step that separates light
+from darkness, happiness from misery! Remembering that we live but
+once, and that the worthy enjoyments of life are so limited in number
+and so hard to get, it seems unjust and monstrous that one little hour
+of jealousy or misunderstanding should wreck the fair prospects of
+months and years. Why is mischief so much readier to our hand than
+good?
+
+We got out at a house near the Park. I assisted Ethel to alight, and,
+as her hand rested on mine, the thought crossed my mind--How sweet if
+this were our own home that we are about to enter!--and I glanced at
+her face to see whether a like thought had visited her. She maintained
+a subdued demeanor, with an expression about the mouth and eyes of a
+peculiar timid gentleness, and, as it were, a sort of mental leaning
+upon me for support and protection. She felt, it may be, a little fear
+of herself, at finding herself--in more senses than one--so near to me;
+and, woman-like, she depended upon me to protect her against the very
+peril of which I was the occasion. No higher or more delicate
+compliment can be paid by a woman to a man; and I resolved that I would
+do what in me lay to deserve it. But such resolutions are the hardest
+in the world to keep, because the circumstance or the impulse of the
+moment is continually in wait to betray you. Ethel was more fascinating
+and lovely in this mood than in any other I had hitherto seen her in;
+and the misgiving, from which I could not free myself, that the man
+whom Fate had made her husband did not appreciate or properly cherish
+the gift bestowed upon him, made me warm toward her more than ever. I
+could scarcely have believed that such blood could flow in the sober
+veins of my middle age; but love knows nothing of time or age!
+
+"I do not like this house," Susie declared, when we had been admitted
+by the care-taker. "It has no carpets, nor chairs, nor pictures; and
+the floor is dirty; and the walls are not pretty!"
+
+"I suppose one can have these houses decorated and furnished at short
+notice?" Ethel asked me.
+
+"It would not take long. There are several firms that make it their
+specialty."
+
+"I have always wanted to live in a house where the colors and forms
+were to my taste. I don't know whether you remember that you used to
+think I had some taste in such matters. Mr. Courtney, of course,
+doesn't care much about art, and he didn't encourage me to carry out my
+ideas. A business man can not be an artist, you know."
+
+"You yourself would have become an artist if--" I began; but I was
+approaching dangerous ground, and I stopped. "This dining-room might be
+done in Indian red," I remarked--"the woodwork, that is to say. The
+walls would be a warm salmon color, which contrasts well with the cold
+blue of the china, which it is the fashion to have about nowadays. As
+for the furniture, antique dark oak is as safe as anything, don't you
+think so?"
+
+"I should like all that," said she, moving a little nearer me, and
+letting her eyes wander about the room with a pleased expression, until
+at length they met my own. "If you could only design our decoration for
+us, I'm sure it would be perfect; at least, I should be satisfied.
+Well, and how should we... how ought the drawing-room to be done?"
+
+"There is a shade of yellow that is very agreeable for drawing-rooms,
+and it goes very well with the dull peacock-blue which is in vogue now.
+Then you could get one of those bloomy Morris friezes. There is some
+very graceful Chippendale to be picked up in various places. And no
+such good furniture is made nowadays. But I am advising you too much
+from the artist's point of view."
+
+"Oh, I can get other sort of advice when I want it." She looked at me
+with a smile; our glances met more often now than at first. "But it
+seems to me," she went on, "that the way the house is built docs not
+suit the way we want to decorate it. Let us look at a smaller one. I
+should think ten rooms would be quite enough. And it would be nice to
+have a corner house, would it not?"
+
+"If the question were only of our agreement, there would probably not
+be much difficulty," I said, in a tone which I tried to make merely
+courteous, but which may have revealed something more than courtesy
+beneath it.
+
+In coming down-stairs she gathered her dress in her right hand and put
+her left in my arm; and then, in a flash, the picture came before me of
+the last time we had gone arm-in-arm together down-stairs. It was at
+her father's house, and she was speaking to me of that unlucky Mrs.
+Murray; we had our quarrel that evening in the drawing-room, and it was
+never made up. From then till now, what a gulf! and yet those years
+would have been but a bridge to pass over, save for the one barrier
+that was insurmountable between us.
+
+"What has become of that Mrs. Murray whom you used to know?" she asked,
+as we reached the foot of the stairs. She relinquished my arm as she
+spoke, and faced me.
+
+I felt the blood come to my face. "Mrs. Murray was in my thoughts at
+the same moment--and perhaps by the same train of associations." I
+answered, "I don't know where she is now; I lost sight of her years
+ago--soon after you were married, in fact. Why do you ask?"
+
+"You had not forgotten her, then?"
+
+"I had every reason to forget her, except the one reason for which I
+have remembered her--and you know what that is! Have you mistrusted me
+all this time?"
+
+"Oh, no--no! I don't think I really mistrusted you at all; and long ago
+I admitted to myself that you had acted unselfishly and honorably. But
+I was angry at the time; you know, sometimes a girl will be angry, even
+when there is no good reason for it. I have long wished for an
+opportunity to tell you this, for my own sake, you know, as well as for
+yours."
+
+"I hardly know whether I am most glad or sorry to hear this," I said,
+as we moved toward the door. "If you had only been able to say it, or
+to think it, before ... there would have been a great difference!"
+
+"The worst of mistakes is, they are so seldom set right at the time, or
+in the way they ought to be. Come, Susie, we are going away now. Susie,
+do you most like to be American or English?"
+
+"English," replied Susie, without hesitation.
+
+Her mother turned to me and said in a low tone:
+
+"I love her, whichever she is."
+
+I understood what she meant. Susie was the symbol of that inevitable
+element in our lives which seems to evolve itself without reference to
+our desires or efforts; but which, nevertheless, when we have
+recognized that it is inevitable, we learn (if we are wise) to accept
+and even to love. Save for the estrangement between Ethel and myself,
+Susie would never have existed; yet there she was, a beautiful child,
+who had as good a right to be as either of us; and her mother loved
+her, and, as it were, bade me love her also. I took the little maiden
+by the hand and said, "You are right, Susie; the Americans are the
+children of the English, and can not expect to be so wise and
+comfortable as they. But you must remember that the Americans have a
+future before them, and we are not enemies any more. Will you be
+friends with me, and let me call you my little girl?"
+
+"I shouldn't mind being your little girl, if I could still have the
+same mamma," was Susie's reply. "Papa is away a great deal, and you
+could be papa, you know, until he came back."
+
+I made some laughing answer; but, in fact, Susie's frank analysis of
+the situation poignantly kindled an imagination which stood in no need
+of stimulus. Ah, if this were the Golden Age, when love never went
+astray, how happy we might be! But it is not the Golden Age--far from
+it! Meanwhile, I think I can assert, with a clear conscience, that no
+dishonorable purpose possessed me. I loved Ethel too profoundly to wish
+to do her wrong. Yet I may have wished--I did wish--that a kindly
+Providence might have seen fit to remove the disabilities that
+controlled us. If a wish could have removed Courtney painlessly to
+another world, I think I should have wished it. There was something
+exquisitely touching in Ethel's appearance and manner. She is as pure
+as any woman that ever lived; but she is a woman! and I felt that, for
+this day, I had a man's power over her. Occasionally I was conscious
+that her eyes were resting on my face; when I addressed her, her aspect
+softened and brightened; she fell into little moods of preoccupation
+from which she would emerge with a sigh; in many ways she betrayed,
+without knowing it, the secret that neither of us would mention. I do
+not mean to imply that she expected me to mention it. A pure woman does
+not realize the dangers of the world; and that very fact is itself her
+strongest security against them. But, had I spoken, she would have
+responded. It was a temptation which I could hardly have believed I
+could have resisted as I did; but such a woman calls out all that is
+best and noblest in a man; and, at the time, I was better than I am!
+
+When we were in the brougham again, I said, "If you will allow me, I
+will drive you to a house I have seen, which belongs to a man with whom
+I am slightly acquainted. He is on the point of leaving it, but his
+furniture is still in it, and, as he is himself an artist and a man of
+taste, it will be worth your while to look at it. He is rather deaf,
+but that is all the better; we can express our opinions without
+disturbing him. Perhaps you might arrange to take house and furniture
+as they stand."
+
+"Whatever you advise, I shall like to do," Ethel answered.
+
+We presently arrived at the house, which was situated in the upper part
+of the town, a little to the west of Fifth Avenue. It was a comely
+gabled edifice of red brick, with square bay-windows and a roomy porch.
+The occupant, Maler, a German, happened to be at home; and on my
+sending in my card, we were admitted at once, and he came to greet us
+in the hall in his usual hearty, headlong fashion.
+
+"My good Campbell," he exclaimed, in his blundering English, "very
+delighted to see you. Ah, dis will be madame, and de little maid! So
+you are married since some time--I have not know it! Your servant,
+Madame Campbell. I know--all de artists know--your husband: we wish we
+could paint how he can--but it is impossible! Ha, ha, ha! not so! Now,
+I am very pleased you shall see dis house. May I beg de honor of
+accompany you? First you shall see de studio; dat I call de stomach of
+de house, eh? because it is most important of all de places, and make
+de rest of de places live. See, I make dat window be put in--you find
+no better light in New York. Den you see, here we have de alcove, where
+Madame Campbell shall sit and make her sewing, while de husband do his
+work on de easel. How you like dat portiere? I design him myself--oh,
+yes, I do all here; you keep them if you like; I go to Germany, perhaps
+not come back after some years, so I leave dem, not so? Now I show you
+my little chamber of the piano. See, I make an arched ceiling--groined
+arch, eh?--and I gild him; so I get pretty light and pretty sound,
+not? Ah! madame, I have not de happiness to be married, but I make my
+house so, dat if I get me a wife, she find all ready; but no wife come,
+so I give him over to Herr Campbell and you. Now we mount up-stairs to
+de bed-rooms, eh?"
+
+In this way he went over the entire house with us. His loud, jolly
+voice, his resounding laugh, his bustling manner, his heedless, boy-
+like self-confidence, and his deafness, made it impossible to get in a
+word of explanation, and, after a few efforts, I gave up the attempt.
+
+"Let him suppose what he likes," I said aside to Ethel, "it can make no
+difference; he is going away, and you will never see him again. After
+all these years, it can do no great harm for us to play at being Mr.
+and Mrs. Campbell for an hour!"
+
+"It is a very beautiful house," she said, tacitly accepting what I had
+proposed. "It is such a house as I have always dreamed of living in. I
+shall not care to look at any others. Will you tell him that we--that I
+will take it just as it stands. You have made this a very pleasant day
+for me--a very happy day," she added, in a lower tone. "Every room here
+will be associated with you. You will come here often and see me, will
+you not? Perhaps, after all, you might use the studio to paint my--or
+Susie's portrait in."
+
+"I shall inflict myself upon you very often, I have no doubt," was all
+I ventured to reply. I could not tell her, at that moment, that we must
+never see each other again. She--after the manner of women--probably
+supposes that a man's strength is limitless; that he may do with
+himself and make of himself what he chooses; and she supposes that I
+could visit her and converse with her day after day, and yet keep my
+thoughts and my acts within such bounds as would enable me to take
+Courtney honestly by the hand. But I know too well my own weakness, and
+I shall leave her while yet I have power to do so. Tomorrow--or soon--I
+will write to her one last letter, telling her why I go.
+
+Sudden and strange indeed has been this passionate episode in a life
+which, methought, had done with passion. It has lasted hardly so many
+hours as I have lived years; and yet, were I to live on into the next
+century, it would never cease to influence me in all I think and do. I
+can not solve to my satisfaction this problem--why two lives should be
+wasted as ours have been. Courtney could have been happy with another
+wife, or with no wife at all, perhaps; but, for Ethel and me, there
+could be no happiness save in each other. But were she free to-day, the
+separation that has already existed--long though it has been--would
+only serve to render our future union more blissful and complete. We
+have learned, by sad experience, the value of a love like ours, and we
+should know how to give it its fullest and widest expression. But oh!
+what a blank and chilly road lies before us now!
+
+I drove her back to her hotel; we hardly spoke all the way; my heart
+was too full, and hers also, I think; though she did not know, as I
+did, that it was our last interview. It must be our last! Heaven help
+me to keep that resolution!
+
+Susie was not at all impressed by the pathos of the situation; she
+babbled all the time, and thus, at all events, afforded us an excuse
+for our silence. At parting, one incident occurred that may as well be
+recorded. I had shaken hands with Ethel, speaking a few words of
+farewell, and allowing her to infer that we might meet again on the
+morrow; then I turned to Susie, and gave her the kiss which I would
+have given the world to have had the right to press on her mother's
+lips. Ethel saw, and, I think, understood. She stooped quickly down,
+and laid her mouth where mine had been. Through the innocent medium of
+the child, our hearts met; and then I saw her no more.
+
+_May 3d_.--Of course, it may not be true, probably it is not;
+mistakes are so easily made in the first moments of such horror and
+confusion; the dead come to life, and the living die. Or, at the worst,
+he may be only wounded or disabled. At all events, I decline to
+believe, save upon certain evidence, that the poor fellow has actually
+been killed. Were it to turn out so, I should feel almost like a
+murderer; for was not I writing, in this very journal, and perhaps at
+the very moment the accident occurred, that if my wish could send him
+to another world, I would not spare him?
+
+_Later_.--I have read all the accounts in the newspapers this
+morning, and all agree in putting Courtney's name among the killed.
+There can be no doubt about it any longer; he is dead. When the
+collision occurred, the car in which he vas riding was thrown across
+the track, and the other train crashed through it. Judging by the
+condition of the body when discovered, death must have been nearly
+instantaneous. Poor Courtney! My conscience is not at ease. Of course,
+I am not really responsible; that is only imagination. But I begin to
+suspect that my imagination has been playing me more than one trick
+lately.
+
+And now, with this new state of affairs so suddenly and terribly
+brought about, what is to be done? I am as yet scarcely in a condition
+to reflect calmly; but a voice within me seems to say that something
+else besides my conscience has been awakened by Courtney's death. Can
+it be that imagination, dallying with what it took for impossibilities,
+could so far mislead a man? Well, I shall start at once for the scene
+of the disaster, and relieve the poor fellow's widow of whatever pain I
+can. Ethel Courtney a widow! Ah, Ethel! Death sheds a ghastly light
+upon the idle vagaries of the human heart.
+
+_May 15th_.--_Denver_, _Colorado_.--Magnificent weather
+and scenery; very different from my own mental scenery and mood at this
+moment. I am sorely out of spirits; and no wonder, after the reckless
+and insane emotion of the first days of this month. One pays for such
+indulgences at my age.
+
+I have been re-reading the foregoing pages of this journal. Was I a
+fool or a coward, or was I merely intoxicated for eight-and-forty
+hours? At all events, Courtney's tragic end sobered me, and put what I
+had been doing in a true light. I am glad my insanity was not permitted
+to proceed farther than it did; but I have quite enough to reproach
+myself with as it is. So far as I hare been able to explain the matter
+to myself, my prime error lay in attributing, in a world subject to
+constant change, too much permanence to a given state of affairs. The
+fact that Ethel was the wife of another man seemed to me so fixed and
+unalterable that I allowed my imagination to play with the picture of
+what might happen if that unalterable fact were altered. Secure in this
+fallacy, I worked myself up to the pitch of believing that I was
+actually and passionately in love with a woman whose inaccessibility
+was, after all, her most winning attraction. Moreover, by writing down,
+in this journal, the events and words of the hours we spent together, I
+confirmed myself in my false persuasion, and probably imported into the
+record of what we said and did an amount of color and hidden
+significance that never, as I am now convinced, belonged to it in
+reality. Deluded by the notion that I was playing with a fancy, I was
+suddenly aroused to find myself imbrued in facts. The whole episode has
+profoundly humiliated me, and degraded me in my own esteem.
+
+But I am not at the bottom of the mystery yet. Was I not in love with
+Ethel? Surely I was, if love be anything. Then why did I not ask her to
+marry me? Would she have refused me? No. That last look she gave me
+from under her black veil, when I told her I was going away.... Ah, no,
+she would not have refused me. Then why did I hesitate? Was not such a
+marriage precisely what I have always longed for? During all these
+seven years have I not been bewailing my bachelorhood, and wishing for
+an Ethel to cheer my solitary fireside with her gracious presence, to
+be interested in my work and hopes, to interest me in her wifely and
+maternal ways and aspirations? And when at last all these things were
+offered me, why did I shrink back and reject them?
+
+Honestly, I can not explain it. Perhaps, if I had never loved her
+before, I might have loved her this time enough to unite my fate with
+hers. Or, perhaps--for I may as well speak plainly, since I am speaking
+to myself--perhaps, by force of habit, I had grown to love, better than
+love itself, those self-same forlorn conditions and dreary solitudes
+which I was continually lamenting and praying to be delivered from.
+What a dismal solution of the problem this would be were it the true
+one! It amounts to saying that I prefer an empty room, a silent hearth,
+an old pair of slippers, and a dressing-gown to the love and
+companionship of a refined and beautiful woman!--that I love even my
+own discomforts more than the comfort she would give me! It sounds
+absurd, scandalous, impossible; and yet, if it be not the literal
+truth, I know not what the truth is. It is amazing that an educated and
+intelligent man can live to be forty years old and still have come to
+no better an understanding of himself than I had. Verily, as my old
+author said, thought is free, but nature is captive, and loveth her
+chain. Yes, my old author was right.
+
+
+
+
+MY FRIEND PATON.
+
+
+Mathew Morriss, my father, was a cotton merchant in Liverpool twenty-
+five years ago--a steady, laborious, clear-headed man, very
+affectionate and genial in his private intercourse. He was wealthy, and
+we lived in a sumptuous house in the upper part of the city. This was
+when I was about ten years old. My father was twice married; I was the
+child of the first wife, who died when I was very young; my stepmother
+came five years later. She was the elder of two sisters, both beautiful
+women. The sister often came to visit us. I remember I liked her better
+than I liked my stepmother; in fact, I regarded her with that sort of
+romantic attachment that often is developed in lads of my age. She had
+golden brown hair and a remarkably sweet voice, and she sang and played
+in a manner that transported me with delight; for I was already devoted
+to music. She was of a gentle yet impulsive temperament, easily moved
+to smiles and tears; she seemed to me the perfection of womankind, and
+I made no secret of my determination to marry her when I grew up. She
+used to caress me, and look at me in a dreamy way, and tell me I was
+the nicest and handsomest boy in the world. "And as soon as you are a
+year older than I am, John," she would say, "you shall marry me, if you
+like."
+
+Another frequent visitor at our house at this time was not nearly so
+much a favorite of mine. This was a German, Adolf Körner by name, who
+had been a clerk in my father's concern for a number of years, and had
+just been admitted junior partner. My father placed every confidence in
+him, and often declared that he had the best idea of business he had
+ever met with. This may very likely have been the fact; but to me he
+appeared simply a tall, grave, taciturn man, of cold manners, speaking
+with a slight German accent, which I disliked. I suppose he was about
+thirty-seven years of age, but I always thought of him as older than my
+father, who was fifty. Another and more valid reason for my disliking
+Körner was that he was in the habit of paying a great deal of attention
+to my ladylove, Miss Juliet Tretherne. I used to upbraid Juliet about
+encouraging his advances, and I expressed my opinion of him in the
+plainest language, at which she would smile in a preoccupied wav, and
+would sometimes draw me to her and kiss me on the forehead. Once she
+said, "Mr. Körner is a very noble gentleman; you must not dislike him."
+This had the effect of making me hate him all the more.
+
+One day I noticed an unusual commotion in the house, and Juliet came
+down-stairs attired in a lovely white dress, with a long veil, and
+fragrant flowers in her hair. She got into a carriage with my father
+and stepmother, and drove away. I did not understand what it meant, and
+no one told me. After they were gone I went into the drawing-room, and,
+greatly to my surprise, saw there a long table covered with a white
+cloth and laid out with a profusion of good things to eat and drink in
+sparkling dishes and decanters. In the middle of the table was a great
+cake covered with white frosting; the butler was arranging some flowers
+round it.
+
+"What is that cake for, Curtis?" I asked.
+
+"For the bride, to be sure," said Curtis, without looking up.
+
+"The bride! who is she?" I demanded in astonishment.
+
+"Your aunt Juliet, to be sure!" said Curtis, composedly, stepping back
+and contemplating his floral arrangement with his head on one side.
+
+I asked no more, but betook myself with all speed to my room, locked
+the door, flung myself on the bed, and cried to heartbreaking with
+grief, indignation, and mortification. After a very long time some one
+tried the door, and a voice--the voice of Juliet--called to me. I made
+no answer. She began to plead with me; I resisted as long as I could,
+but finally my affection got the better of my resentment, and I arose
+and opened the door, hiding my tear-stained face behind my arm. Juliet
+caught me in her arms and kissed me; tears were running down her own
+cheeks. How lovely she looked! My heart melted, and I was just on the
+point of forgiving her when the voice of Körner became audible from
+below, calling out "Mrs. Körner!" I tore myself away from her, and
+cried passionately, "You don't love me! you love him! go to him!" She
+looked at me for a moment with a pained expression; then she put her
+hand in the pocket of her dress and drew out something done up in white
+paper. "See what I have brought you, you unkind boy," said she. "What
+is it?" I demanded. "A piece of my wedding-cake," she replied. "Give it
+me!" said I. She put it in my hand; I ran forward to the head of the
+stairs, which Körner was just ascending, dashed the cake in his face,
+and then rushed back to my own room, whence neither threats nor coaxing
+availed to draw me forth for the rest of the day.
+
+I never saw Juliet again. She and her husband departed on their
+wedding-trip that afternoon; it was to take them as far as Germany, for
+Körner said that he wished to visit his father and mother, who were
+still alive, before settling down permanently in Liverpool. Whether
+they really did so was never discovered. But, about a fortnight later,
+a dreadful fact came to light. Körner--the grave and reticent Körner,
+whom everybody trusted and thought so highly of--was a thief, and he
+had gone off with more than half my father's property in his pocket.
+The blow almost destroyed my father, and my stepmother, too, for that
+matter, for at first it seemed as though Juliet must have been privy to
+the crime. This, however, turned out not to have been the case. Her
+fate must have been all the more terrible on that account; but no news
+of either of them ever came back to us, and my father would never take
+any measures to bring Körner to justice. It was several months before
+he recovered from the shock sufficiently to take up business again; and
+then the American Civil War came and completed his ruin. He died, a
+poor and broken-down man, a year later. My stepmother, who was really
+an admirable woman, realized whatever property remained to us, took a
+small house, and sent me to an excellent school, where I was educated
+for Cambridge. Meanwhile I had been devoting all possible time to
+music; for I had determined to become a composer, and I was looking
+forward, after taking my degree, to completing my musical education
+abroad; but my mother's health was precarious, and, when the time came,
+she found herself unequal to making the journey, and the change of
+habits and surroundings that it implied. We lived very quietly in
+Liverpool for three or four years; then she died, and, after I had
+settled our affairs, I found myself in possession of a small income and
+alone in the world. Without loss of time I set out for the Continent.
+
+I went to a German city, where the best musical training was to be had,
+and made my arrangements to pass several years there. At the banker's,
+when I went to provide for the regular receipt of my remittances, I met
+a young American, by name Paton Jeffries. He was from New England, and,
+I think, a native of the State of Connecticut; his father, he told me,
+was a distinguished inventor, who had made and lost a considerable
+fortune in devising a means of promoting sleep by electricity. Paton
+was studying to be an architect, which, he said, was the coming
+profession in his country; and it was evident, on a short acquaintance,
+that he was a fellow of unusual talents--one of those men of whom you
+say that, come what may, they are always sure to fall on their feet.
+For my part, I have certainly never met with so active and versatile a
+spirit. He was a year or so older than I, rather tall than short,
+lightly but strongly built, with a keen, smiling, subtle face, a
+finely-developed forehead, light wavy hair, and gray eyes, very
+penetrating and bright. There was a pleasing kind of eagerness and
+volubility in his manner of talking, and a slight imperfection, not
+amounting to a lisp, in his utterance, which imparted a naive charm to
+his speech. He used expressive and rapid gestures with his hands and
+arms, and there was a magnetism, a fascination, about the whole man
+that strongly impressed me. I was at that period much more susceptible
+of impressions, and prone to yield to them, than I am now. Paton's
+rattling vivacity, his knowledge of the world, his entertaining talk
+and stories, his curiosity, enterprise, and audacity, took me by storm;
+he was my opposite in temperament and character, and it seemed to me
+that he had most of the advantages on his side. Nevertheless, he
+professed, and I still believe he felt, a great liking for me, and we
+speedily came to an agreement to seek a lodging together. On the second
+day of our search, we found just what we wanted.
+
+It was an old house, on the outskirts of the town, standing by itself,
+with a small garden behind it. It had formerly been occupied by an
+Austrian baron, and it was probably not less than two hundred years
+old. The baron's family had died out, or been dispersed, and now the
+venerable edifice was let, in the German fashion, in separate floors or
+_étages_, communicating with a central staircase. Some alterations
+rendered necessary by this modification had been made, but
+substantially the house was unchanged. Our apartment comprised four or
+five rooms on the left of the landing and at the top of the house,
+which consisted of three stories. The chief room was the parlor, which
+looked down through a square bow-window on the street. This room was of
+irregular shape, one end being narrower than the other, and nearly
+fitting the space at this end was a kind of projecting shelf or
+mantelpiece (only, of course, there was no fireplace under it, open
+fireplaces being unknown in Germany), upon which rested an old cracked
+looking-glass, made in two compartments, the frame of which, black with
+age and fly-spots, was fastened against the wall. The shelf was
+supported by two pilasters; but the object of the whole structure was a
+mystery; so far as appeared, it served no purpose but to support the
+looking-glass, which might just as well have been suspended from a nail
+in the wall. Paton, I remember, betrayed a great deal of curiosity
+about it; and since the consideration of the problem was more in his
+line of business than in mine, I left it to him. At the opposite end of
+the room stood a tall earthenware stove. The walls were wainscoted five
+feet up from the dark polished floor, and were hung with several smoky
+old paintings, of no great artistic value. The chairs and tables were
+plain, but very heavy and solid, and of a dark hue like the room. The
+window was nearly as wide as it was high, and opened laterally from the
+center on hinges. The other rooms were of the same general appearance,
+but smaller. We both liked the place, and soon made ourselves very
+comfortable in it. I hired a piano, and had it conveyed upstairs to the
+parlor; while Paton disposed his architectural paraphernalia on and in
+the massive writing-table near the window. Our cooking and other
+household duties were done for us by the wife of the _portier_,
+the official corresponding to the French _concierge_, who, in all
+German houses, attends at the common door, and who, in this case, lived
+in a couple of musty little closets opening into the lower hall, and
+eked out his official salary by cobbling shoes. He was an odd,
+grotesque humorist, of most ungainly exterior, black haired and
+bearded, with a squint, a squab nose, and a short but very powerful
+figure. Dirty he was beyond belief, and he was abominably fragrant of
+vile tobacco. For my part, I could not endure this fellow; but Paton,
+who had much more of what he called human nature in him than I had,
+established friendly relations with him at once, and reported that he
+found him very amusing. It was characteristic of Paton that, though he
+knew much less about the German language than I did, he could
+understand and make himself understood in it much better; and, when we
+were in company, it was always he who did the talking.
+
+It would never have occurred to me to wonder, much less to inquire, who
+might be the occupants of the other _étages_; but Paton was more
+enterprising, and before we had been settled three days in our new
+quarters, he had gathered from his friend the portier, and from other
+sources, all the obtainable information on the subject. The information
+was of no particular interest, however, except as regarded the persons
+who dwelt on the floor immediately below us. They were two--an old man
+and a young woman, supposed to be his daughter. They had been living
+here several years--from before the time, indeed, that the portier had
+occupied his present position. In all these years the old man was known
+to have been out of his room only twice. He was certainly an eccentric
+person, and was said to be a miser and extremely wealthy. The portier
+further averred that his property--except such small portion of it as
+was invested and on the income of which he lived--was realized in the
+form of diamonds and other precious stones, which, for greater
+security, he always carried, waking or sleeping, in a small leathern
+bag, fastened round his neck by a fine steel chain. His daughter was
+scarcely less a mystery than he, for, though she went out as often as
+twice or thrice a week, she was always closely veiled, and her figure
+was so disguised by the long cloak she wore that it was impossible to
+say whether she were graceful or deformed, beautiful or ugly. The
+balance of belief, however, was against her being attractive in any
+respect. The name by which the old miser was known was Kragendorf; but,
+as the portier sagaciously remarked, there was no knowing, in such
+cases, whether the name a man bore was his own or somebody's else.
+
+This Kragendorf mystery was another source of apparently inexhaustible
+interest to Paton, who was fertile in suggestions as to how it might be
+explained or penetrated. I believe he and the portier talked it over at
+great length, but, so far as I am aware, without arriving at any
+solution. I took little heed of the matter, being now fully absorbed in
+my studies; and it is to be hoped that Herr Kragendorf was not of a
+nervous temperament, otherwise he must have inveighed profanely against
+the constant piano-practice that went on over his head. I also had a
+violin, on which I flattered myself I could perform with a good deal of
+expression, and by and by, in the long, still evenings--it was
+November, but the temperature was still mild--I got into the habit of
+strolling along the less frequented streets, with my violin under my
+shoulder, drawing from it whatever music my heart desired. Occasionally
+I would pause at some convenient spot, lean against a wall, and give
+myself up to improvisation. At such times a little cluster of auditors
+would gradually collect in front of me, listening for the most part
+silently, or occasionally giving vent to low grunts and interjections
+of approval. One evening, I remember, a young woman joined the group,
+though keeping somewhat in the background; she listened intently, and
+after a time gradually turned her face toward me, unconsciously as it
+were; and the light of a street-lamp at a little distance revealed a
+countenance youthful, pale, sad, and exquisitely beautiful. It
+impressed me as with a vague reminiscence of something I had seen or
+imagined--some pictured face, perhaps, caught in a glance and never to
+be identified. Her eyes finally met mine; I stopped playing. She
+started, gave me an alarmed look, and, gliding swiftly away,
+disappeared. I could not forget this incident; it haunted me strangely
+and persistently. Many a time thereafter I revisited the same spot, and
+drew together other audiences, but the delicate girl with the dark-blue
+eyes and the tender, sensitive mouth, was never again among them.
+
+It was at this epoch, I think, that the inexhaustible Paton made a
+discovery. From my point of view it was not a discovery of any moment;
+but, as usual, he took interest in it enough for both of us. It
+appeared that, in attempting to doctor the crack in the old looking-
+glass, a large piece of the plate had got loose, and come away in his
+hands; and in the space behind he had detected a paper, carefully
+folded and tied up with a piece of faded ribbon. Paton was never in the
+habit of hampering himself with fine-drawn scruples, and he had no
+hesitation in opening the folded paper and spreading it out on the
+table. Judging from the glance I gave it, it seemed to be a confused
+and abstruse mixture of irregular geometrical figures and cramped
+German chirography. But Paton set to work upon it with as much
+concentration as if it had been a recipe for the Philosopher's Stone;
+he reproduced the lines and angles on fresh paper, and labored over the
+writing with a magnifying-glass and a dictionary. At times he would
+mutter indistinctly to himself, lift his eyebrows, nod or shake his
+head, bite his lips, and rub his forehead, and anon fall to work again
+with fresh vigor. At last he leaned back in his chair, thumped his hand
+on the table, and laughed.
+
+"Got it!" he exclaimed. "Say, John, old boy, I've got it! and it's the
+most curious old thing ever you saw in your life!"
+
+"Something in analytical geometry, isn't it?" said I, turning round on
+my piano-stool.
+
+"Analytical pudding's end! It's a plan of a house, my boy, and, what's
+more, of this very house we're in! That's a find, and no mistake! These
+are the descriptions and explanations--these bits of writing. It's a
+perfect labyrinth of Crete! Udolpho was nothing to it!"
+
+"Well, I suppose it isn't of much value except as a curiosity?"
+
+"Don't be too sure of that, John, my boy! Who knows but there's a
+treasure concealed somewhere in this house? or a skeleton in a secret
+chamber! This old paper may make our fortune yet!"
+
+"The treasure wouldn't belong to us if we found it; and, besides, we
+can't make explorations beyond our own premises, and we know what's in
+them already."
+
+"Do we? Did we know what was behind the looking-glass? Did you never
+hear of sliding panels, and private passages, and concealed staircases?
+Where's your imagination, man? But you don't need imagination--here it
+is in black and white!"
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to a part of the plan; but, as I was stooping
+to examine it, he seemed to change his mind.
+
+"No matter," he exclaimed, suddenly folding up the paper and rising
+from his chair. "You're not an architect, and you can't be expected to
+go in for these things. No; there's no practical use in it, of course.
+But secret passages were always a hobby of mine. Well, what are you
+going to do this evening? Come over to the café and have a game of
+billiards!"
+
+"No; I shall go to bed early to-night."
+
+"You sleep too much," said Paton. "Everybody does, if my father,
+instead of inventing a way of promoting sleep, had invented a way of
+doing without it, he'd have been the richest man in America to-day.
+However, do as you like. I sha'n't be back till late."
+
+He put on his hat and sallied forth with a cigar in his mouth. Paton
+was of rather a convivial turn; he liked to have a good time, as he
+called it; and, indeed, he seemed to think that the chief end of man
+was to get money enough to have a good time continually, a sort of good
+eternity. His head was strong, and he could stand a great deal of
+liquor; and I have seen him sip and savor a glass of raw brandy or
+whisky as another man would a glass of Madeira. In this, and the other
+phases of his life about town, I had no participation, being
+constitutionally as well as by training averse therefrom; and he, on
+the other hand, would never have listened to my sage advice to modify
+his loose habits. Our companionship was apart from these things; and,
+as I have said, I found in him a good deal that I could sympathize
+with, without approaching the moralities.
+
+That night, after I had been for some time asleep, I awoke and found
+myself listening to a scratching and shoving noise that seemed quite
+unaccountable. By-and-by it made me uneasy. I got up and went toward
+the parlor, from which the noise proceeded. On reaching the doorway, I
+saw Paton on his knees before one of the pilasters in the narrow end of
+the room; a candle was on the floor beside him, and he was busily at
+work at something, though what it was I could not make out. The creak
+of the threshold under my foot caused him to look round. He started
+violently, and sprang to his feet.
+
+"Oh! it's you, is it?" he said, after a moment. "Great Scott! how you
+scared me! I was--I dropped a bit of money hereabouts, and I was
+scraping about to find it. No matter--it wasn't much! Sorry I disturbed
+you, old boy." And, laughing, he picked up his candle and went into his
+own room.
+
+From this time there was a change vaguely perceptible in our mutual
+relations; we chatted together less than before, and did not see so
+much of each other. Paton was apt to be out when I was at home, and
+generally sat up after I was abed. He seemed to be busy about
+something--something connected with his profession, I judged; but,
+contrary to his former custom, he made no attempt to interest me in it.
+To tell the truth, I had begun to realize that our different tastes and
+pursuits must lead us further and further apart, and that our
+separation could be only a question of time. Paton was a materialist,
+and inclined to challenge all the laws and convictions that mankind has
+instituted and adopted; there was no limit to his radicalism. For
+example, on coming in one day, I found him with a curious antique
+poniard in his hands, which he had probably bought in some old
+curiosity shop. At first I fancied he meant to conceal it; but, if so,
+he changed his mind.
+
+"What do you think of that?" he said, holding it out to me. "There's a
+solution of continuity for you! Mind you don't prick yourself! It's
+poisoned up to the hilt!"
+
+"What do you want of such a thing?" I asked.
+
+"Well, killing began with Cain, and isn't likely to go out of fashion
+in our day. I might find it convenient to give one of my friends--you,
+for instance--a reminder of his mortality some time. You'll say murder
+is immoral. Bless you, man, we never could do without it! No man dies
+before his time, and some one dies every day that some one else may
+live."
+
+This was said in a jocose way, and, of course, Paton did not mean it.
+But it affected me unpleasantly nevertheless.
+
+As I was washing my hands in my room, I happened to look out of my
+window, which commanded a view of the garden at the back of the house.
+It was an hour after sunset, and the garden was nearly dark; but I
+caught a movement of something below, and, looking more closely, I
+recognized the ugly figure of the portier. He seemed to be tying
+something to the end of a long slender pole, like a gigantic fishing-
+rod; and presently he advanced beneath my window, and raised the pole
+as high as it would go against the wall of the house. The point he
+touched was the sill of the window below mine--probably that of the
+bedroom of Herr Kragendorf. At this juncture the portier seemed to be
+startled at something--possibly he saw me at my window; at all events,
+he lowered his pole and disappeared in the house.
+
+The next day Paton made an announcement that took me by surprise. He
+said he had made up his mind to quit Germany, and that very shortly. He
+mentioned having received letters from home, and declared he had got,
+or should soon have got, all he wanted out of this country. "I'm going
+to stop paying money for instruction," he said, "and begin to earn it
+by work. I shall stay another week, but then I'm off. Too slow here for
+me! I want to be in the midst of things, using my time."
+
+I did not attempt to dissuade him; in fact, my first feeling was rather
+one of relief; and this Paton, with his quick preceptions, was probably
+aware of.
+
+"Own up, old boy!" he said, laughing; "you'll be able to endure my
+absence. And yet you needn't think of me as worse than anybody else. If
+everybody were musicians and moralists, it would be nice, no doubt; but
+one might get tired of it in time, and then what would you do? You must
+give the scamps and adventurers their innings, after all! They may not
+do much good, but they give the other fellows occupation. I was born
+without my leave being asked, and I may act as suits me without asking
+anybody's leave."
+
+This was said on a certain bright morning after our first fall of snow;
+the tiled roofs of the houses were whitened with it, it cushioned the
+window-sills, and spread a sparkling blankness over the garden. In the
+streets it was already melting, and people were slipping and splashing
+on the wet and glistening pavements. After gazing out at this scene for
+a while, in a mood of unwonted thoughtfulness, Paton yawned, stretched
+himself, and declared his intention of taking a stroll before dinner.
+Accordingly he lit a cigar and went forth. I watched him go down the
+street and turn the corner.
+
+An hour afterward, just when dinner was on the table, I heard an
+unusual noise and shuffling on the stairs, and a heavy knock on the
+door. I opened it, and saw four men bearing on a pallet the form of my
+friend Paton. A police officer accompanied them. They brought Paton in,
+and laid him on his bed. The officer told me briefly what had happened,
+gave me certain directions, and, saying that a surgeon would arrive
+immediately, he departed with the four men tramping behind him.
+
+Paton had slipped in going across the street, and a tramway car had run
+over him. He was not dead, though almost speechless; but his injuries
+were such that it was impossible that he should recover. He kept his
+eyes upon me; they were as bright as ever, though his face was deadly
+pale. He seemed to be trying to read my thoughts--to find out my
+feeling about him, and my opinion of his condition. I was terribly
+shocked and grieved, and my face no doubt showed it. By-and-by I saw
+his lips move, and bent down to listen.
+
+"Confounded nuisance!" he whispered faintly in my car. "It's all right,
+though; I'm not going to die this time. I've got something to do, and
+I'm going to do it--devil take me if I don't!"
+
+He was unable to say more, and soon after the surgeon came in. He made
+an examination, and it was evident that he had no hope. His shrug of
+the shoulders was not lost upon Paton, who frowned, and made a defiant
+movement of the lip. But presently he said to me, still in the same
+whisper, "John, if that old fool should be right--he won't be, but in
+case of accidents--you must take charge of my things--the papers, and
+all. I'll make you heir of my expectations! Write out a declaration to
+that effect: I can sign my name; and he'll be witness."
+
+I did as he directed, and having explained to the surgeon the nature of
+the document, I put the pen in Paton's hand; but was obliged to guide
+his hand with my own in order to make an intelligible signature. The
+surgeon signed below, and Paton seemed satisfied. He closed his eyes;
+his sufferings appeared to be very slight. But, even while I was
+looking at him, a change came over his face--a deadly change. His eyes
+opened; they were no longer bright, but sunken and dull. He gave me a
+dusky look--whether of rage, of fear, or of entreaty, I could not tell.
+His lips parted, and a voice made itself audible; not like his own
+voice, but husky and discordant. "I'm going," it said. "But look out
+for me.... Do it yourself!"
+
+"Der Herr ist todt" (the man is dead), said the surgeon the next
+minute.
+
+It was true. Paton had gone out of this life at an hour's warning. What
+purpose or desire his last words indicated, there was nothing to show.
+He was dead; and yet I could hardly believe that it was so. He had been
+so much alive; so full of schemes and enterprises. Nothing now was left
+but that crushed and haggard figure, stiffening on the bed; nothing, at
+least, that mortal senses could take cognizance of. It was a strange
+thought.
+
+Paton's funeral took place a few days afterward. I returned from the
+graveyard weary in body and mind. At the door of the house stood the
+portier, who nodded to me, and said,
+
+"A very sad thing to happen, worthy sir; but so it is in the world. Of
+all the occupants of this house, one would have said the one least
+likely to be dead to-day was Herr Jeffries. Heh! if I had been the good
+Providence, I would have made away with the old gentleman of the
+_étage_ below, who is of no use to anybody."
+
+This, for lack of a better, was Paton's funeral oration. I climbed the
+three flights of stairs and let myself into our apartment--mine
+exclusively now. The place was terribly lonely; much more so than if
+Paton had been alive anywhere in the world. But he was dead; and, if
+his own philosophy were true, he was annihilated. But it was not true!
+How distinct and minute was my recollection of him--his look, his
+gestures, the tones of his voice. I could almost see him before me; my
+memory of him dead seemed clearer than when he was alive. In that
+invisible world of the mind was he not living still, and perhaps not
+far away.
+
+I sat down at the table where he had been wont to work, and unlocked
+the drawers in which he kept his papers. These, or some of them, I took
+out and spread before me. But I found it impossible, as yet, to
+concentrate my attention upon them; I pushed back my chair, and,
+rising, went to the piano. Here I remained for perhaps a couple of
+hours, striking the vague chords that echo wandering thoughts. I was
+trying to banish this haunting image of Paton from my mind, and at
+length I partly succeeded.
+
+All at once, however, the impression of him (as I may call it) came
+back with a force and vividness that startled me. I stopped playing,
+and sat for a minute perfectly still. I felt that Paton was in the
+room; that if I looked round I should see him. I however restrained
+myself from looking round with all the strength of my will--wherefore I
+know not. What I felt was not fear, but the conviction that I was on
+the brink of a fearful and unprecedented experience--an experience
+that would not leave me as it found me. This strange struggle with
+myself taxed all my powers; the sweat started out on my forehead. At
+last the moment came when I could struggle no longer. I laid my hand on
+the keyboard, and pushed myself round on the stool. There was a
+momentary dazzle before my eyes, and after that I saw plainly. My hand,
+striking the keys, had produced a jarring discord; and while this was
+yet tingling in my ears, Paton, who was sitting in his old place at the
+table, with his back toward me, faced about in his chair, and his eyes
+met mine. I thought he smiled.
+
+My excitement was past, and was succeeded by a dead calm. I examined
+him critically. His appearance was much the same as when in life; nay,
+he was even more like himself than before. The subtle or crafty
+expression which had always been discernible in his features was now
+intensified, and there was something wild and covertly fierce in the
+shining of his gray eyes, something that his smile was unable to
+disguise. What was human and genial in my former friend had passed
+away, and what remained was evil--the kind of evil that I now perceived
+to have been at the base of his nature. It was a revelation of
+character terrible in its naked completeness. I knew at a glance that
+Paton must always have been a far more wicked man that I had ever
+imagined; and in his present state all the remains of goodness had been
+stripped away, and nothing but wickedness was left.
+
+I felt impelled, by an impulse for which I could not account, to
+approach the table and examine the papers once more; and now it entered
+into my mind to perceive a certain method and meaning in them that had
+been hidden from me before. It was as though I were looking at them
+through Paton's intelligence, and with his memory. He had in some way
+ceased to be visible to me; but I became aware that he wished me to sit
+down in his chair, and I did so. Under his guidance, and in obedience
+to a will that seemed to be my own, and yet was in direct opposition to
+my real will, I began a systematic study of the papers. Paton,
+meanwhile, remained close to me, though I could no longer see him; but
+I felt the gaze of his fierce, shining eyes, and his crafty, evil
+smile. I soon obtained a tolerable insight into what the papers meant,
+and what was the scheme in which Paton had been so much absorbed at the
+time of his death, and which he had been so loath to abandon.
+
+It was a wicked and cruel scheme, worked out to the smallest
+particular. But, though I understood its hideousness intellectually, it
+aroused in mo no corresponding emotion; my sensitiveness to right arid
+wrong seemed stupefied or inoperative. I could say, "This is wicked,"
+but I could not awaken in myself a horror of committing the wickedness;
+and, moreover, I knew that, if the influence Paton was able to exercise
+over me continued, I must in due time commit it.
+
+Presently I became aware, or, to speak more accurately, I seemed to
+remember, that there was something in Paton's room which it was
+incumbent on me to procure. I went thither, lifted up a corner of the
+rag between the bed and the stove, and beheld, in an aperture in the
+floor, of the existence of which I had till now known nothing, the
+antique poisoned dagger that Paton had showed me a few weeks before,
+and which I had not seen since then. I brought it back to the sitting-
+room, put it in a drawer of the table, and locked the drawer, at the
+same time making a mental note to the effect that I should reopen the
+drawer at a certain hour of the night and take the dagger out. All this
+while Paton was close at hand, though not visible to sight; but I had a
+sort of inner perception of his presence and movements. All at once, at
+about the hour of sunset, I saw him again; he moved toward the looking-
+glass at the narrow end of the room, laid his hand upon one of the
+pilasters, glanced at me over his shoulder, and immediately seemed to
+stoop down. As I sat, the edge of the table hid him from sight. I stood
+up and looked across. He was not there; and a kind of reaction of my
+nerves informed me that he was gone absolutely, for the time.
+
+This reaction produced a lassitude impossible to describe; it was
+overpowering, and I had no choice but to yield to it. I dropped back in
+my chair, leaned forward on the table, and instantly fell into a heavy
+sleep, or stupor.
+
+I awoke abruptly, with a sensation as if a hand had been laid on my
+shoulder. It was night, and I knew that the hour I had noted in my mind
+was at hand. I opened the drawer and took out the dagger, which I put
+in my pocket. The house was quite silent. A shiver passed through me. I
+was aware that Paton was standing at the narrow end of the room,
+waiting for me: Yes--there he was, or the impression of him in my
+brain--what did it matter? I arose mechanically and walked toward him.
+He had no need to direct me: I knew all there was to do, and how to do
+it. I knelt on the floor, laid my shoulder against the pilaster, and
+pushed it laterally. It moved aside on a pivot, disclosing an iron ring
+let into the floor. I laid hold of this ring, and lifted. A section of
+the floor came up, and I saw a sort of ladder descending
+perpendicularly into darkness. Down the ladder Paton went, and I
+followed him. Arrived at the bottom, I turned to the left, led by an
+instinct or a fascination; passed along a passage barely wide enough to
+admit me, until I came against a smooth, hard surface. I passed my hand
+over it until I touched a knob or catch, which I pressed, and the
+surface gave way before me like a door. I stumbled forward, and found
+myself in a room of what was doubtless Herr Kragendorf's apartment. A
+keen, cold air smote against my face; and with it came a sudden influx
+of strength and self-possession. I felt that, for a moment at least,
+the fatal influence of Paton upon me was broken. But what was that
+sound of a struggle--those cries and gasps, that seemed to come from an
+adjoining room?
+
+I sprang forward, opened a door, and beheld a tall old man, with white
+hair and beard, in the grasp of a ruffian whom I at once recognized as
+the portier. A broken window showed how he had effected his entrance.
+One hand held the old man by the throat; in the other was a knife,
+which he was prevented from using by a young woman, who had flung
+herself upon him in such a way as to trammel his movements. In another
+moment, however, he would have shaken her off.
+
+But that moment was not allowed him. I seized him with a strength that
+amazed myself--a strength which never came upon me before or since. The
+conflict lasted but a breath or two; I hurled him to the floor, and, as
+he fell, his right arm was doubled under him, and the knife which he
+held entered his back beneath the left shoulder-blade. When I rose up
+from the whirl and fury of the struggle, I saw the old man reclining
+exhausted on the bosom of the girl. I knew him, despite his white hair
+and beard. And the face that bent so lovingly above him was the face
+that had looked into mine that night on the street--the face of the
+blue-eyed maiden--of a younger and a lovelier Juliet! As I gazed, there
+came a thundering summons at the door, and the police entered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My poor uncle Körner had not prospered after his great stroke of
+roguery. His wife had died of a broken heart, after giving birth to a
+daughter, and his stolen riches had vanished almost as rapidly as they
+were acquired. He had at last settled down with his daughter in this
+old house. The treasure in the leathern bag, though a treasure to him,
+was not of a nature to excite general cupidity. It consisted, not of
+precious stones, but of relics of his dead wife--her rings, a lock of
+her hair, her letters, a miniature of her in a gold case. These poor
+keepsakes, and his daughter, had been the only solace of his lonely and
+remorseful life.
+
+It was uncertain whether Paton and the portier had planned the robbery
+together, or separately, and in ignorance of each other's purpose. Nor
+can I tell whether my disembodied visitor came to me with good or with
+evil intent. Wicked spirits, even when they seem to have power to carry
+out their purposes, are perhaps only permitted to do so, so far as is
+consistent with an overruling good of which they know nothing.
+Certainly, if I had not descended the secret passage, Körner would have
+been killed, and perhaps my Juliet likewise--the mother of my children.
+But should I have been led on to stab him myself, with the poisoned
+dagger, had the portier not been there? Juliet smiles and says No, and
+I am glad to agree with her. But I have never since then found that
+anniversary upon me, without a shudder of awe, and a dark thought of
+Paton Jeffries.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of David Poindexter's Disappearance and
+Other Tales, by Julian Hawthorne
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